This morning I cruised into the parking lot just seconds behind my twenty-something friend, Sam. It was raining. Not polite, sprinkles--but solid substantial, rain.A row away from me, I saw him pull up his baby blue hoodie hood and quickly stride to the door. I leisurely reached over for the golf umbrella laying against my passenger seat; calmly got out of my CR-V and enjoyed the cool walk, carefully avoiding the puddles.
Once upstairs, I said to Sam, "You know what the biggest difference between you and me is?" (He's not an English major--I could say it that way.) He shot me a clueless twist of the head and raise of the brow.
"An umbrella," I said, smirked and went into my office.
There are truisms about generations and aging that hang in the air as plainly as rain. Umbrellas is one of them. In my first car, a rusted out 1972 Audi Fox, no umbrella. My 1986 CRX, no umbrella. But somewhere in my Accord years it hit me,
"This whole walking in the rain thing is getting annoying. I bet a cheap golf umbrella could change my life---or at least reduce my moisture content."
I don't know when that day was, but there have been similar days that define my aging process. Days like:
"I don't why...but suddenly I actually care what my lawn looks like. Strangely...I didn't feel this way last week."
"Wow...I just saw a policeman that I went to school with. Huh, I know policemen!"
And time has kept ticking and I've recently said to myself, "Hmm...I know the police chief...and the mayor...and the fire chief."
Those positions used to be held by "old guys" whom I couldn't relate with. Now we're friends at the ballpark or church.
It's weird. It happens. We age. Change. And some days, we see it tangibly in the soggy blue hoodie one row in front of us.
