Senior Living: A choice to keep the past in the past

Writer stops looking in rear-view mirror in favour of focussing on today

Published Sep 09, 2024  •  3 minute read

Keeping up with today’s news is one of Mike Boone’s daily habits. He likes to start his day with a glance at the daily newspaper.  Photo by Getty Images/iStock Photo

The pitch to my partner: “I plan to write an August column about my left-wing 1950s summer camp.”

Her response: “You’ve done that … more than once.”

My re-response: “OK, how about writing the 1960s September school years with my pot-puffing university pals?”

Her re-re-response “Ditto. Done that.”

I turned 76 this month. There are health issues, but I’m still breathing. And I ought to be writing a column that my PCE (personal copy editor) won’t send back to the keyboard.

Article content

But here’s my challenge: If I’m not reminiscing about nearly 80 years of the past, I have to write about the present … specifically about where I’m at in the present.

And that, dear readers, is tough because the peaceful present is in sharp contrast to the provocative past.

The aforementioned partner takes good care of this old(ish) guy.

I eat healthy food. We do daily walking with our dogs, regardless of the weather (other than blizzards, which are becoming rare in this eastern part of Canada.)

We watch quality television. She tolerates my indulgence for sports on TV, and she joins me for England’s Premier League soccer. (We love Liverpool. We will attend a game there … once I win the lottery.)

But Life in the 70s is not about soccer … or hockey … or football. The column is about where I’m at. And I won’t overindulge in my sports giddiness.

OK, let’s talk politics — as in a septuagenarian’s lingering interest in the subject.

It began in the late 1950s. I was a little squirt who was terrible at the fun stuff in summer camp: sports and swimming.

I was also a young kid with a single parent. My mother was a bookkeeper in the clothing trade, and she didn’t get back to work until late in the afternoon.

Article content

A good portion of the period between after-school and my mother’s arrival was time with my grandfather. He talked politics and I liked to listen.

That carried over to summer camp. I learned politics from summer camp counsellor Jerry Cohen, a brilliant guy who went on to a prestige professorship at Oxford.

So while my campmates played softball and hit the swimming pool, I spent time shooting the breeze with Cohen.

He was a camp counsellor teaching politics to a little kid. I’ve followed politics ever since. Not that I’m obsessed with it.

I read the paper. I watch the news networks. I lunch with old friends who talk politics (and health crises, but that’s another column.)

But there’s a difference between interest and obsession. And there’s an old guy’s tendency to pass the torch to people who will run the world after I’m out of it.

My beloved daughter has strong political opinions. I disagree with her on a few issues, but I respect her views. And I hope this world is a better place when she’s a septuagenarian.

Has the column given you some thoughts or maybe a headache?

So let’s lighten up. My aforementioned lunch friends do a lot of laughing. (But not while they’re chewing. That combo — chuckling while chomping — can cause a coronary crisis.)

Article content

There’s humour everywhere in print and on TV. Clever men and women are good at it, and I’m a fan of more than a few.

Back in my distant youth, I watched the comics on Ed Sullivan’s show. I didn’t get all the jokes; but if my mother and grandparents laughed, I tended to join in the chuckling.

I loved Bob Hope — until his politics became repellent. Jackie Mason was great … until Sullivan accused him of “obscene gestures” and cancelled Mason’s $45,000 contract, which was major money in 1964.

Fast-forward almost 60 years. Is there a comedian you can’t find SOMEWHERE on TV?

I loved the late Richard Pryor. And I’m still seeking an absolute comic genius, but there are many funny men and women on TV.

Life goes on in 2024.

We gotta be laughing.

— Mike Boone writes the Life in the 70s column. [email protected]

Article content