Gene Perret - New Tricks for Old Dogs: 28 Laughable Lessons for People Too Stiff to Change . . . or Bend . . . or Move

Copyright 2016 Gene Perret

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

2015955942

Paperback ISBN 9781942934462

Ebook ISBN 9781944822002

Hardcover ISBN 9781944822019

Printed in the United States of America

Edited by Adam McLain

Cover design by David Miles

Book design by Brooke Jorden

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First Edition

Dedicated to my good friend and personal self-help guru, Ed Hercer.

Introduction

Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act. Truman Capote

S ome things get better with age. For instance, wine and... uh... well, just wine. And even wine is suspect. Suppose you discover a bottle of wine that has been hidden in some abandoned cellarnot a wine cellar, just a cellarfor, lets say, two thousand years. The bottle is covered with cobwebs and dust, but the liquid is still liquid. You can open that bottle of ancient wine, but you shouldnt drink it. Or, at least, you should have someone you dont particularly care for drink it first.

We assume some things get better with age, but they really dontlike antiques. We all assume that the older an antique is, the more valuable it is. Yet when you see heirlooms displayed on those TV shows about collectibles or someone bringing a relic to a pawnshop, you hear things like Yes, this is a fine example of prediluvian [I made that name up], hand-carved pottery. I would say this particular piece dates back to about 600 B.C. Its one of the most extraordinary pieces Ive ever seen, and I thank you for bringing it in.

The person who brought it in begins to salivate and says, Yeah, but... ? All that person wants to know is: Whats it worth?

Then the expert says, Of course, it does have some conditioning problems, which will affect the value.

The person who owns it says, Yeah, so... ? She still just wants to know what its worth.

The expert says, Youll notice that there is some discoloration about the base and that there are multiple scratches on the surface.

The thing is over 2,600 years old. Youre going to get a few scratches with 2,600 years of use. Im only in my seventies and I have a little discoloration, too. The point is that you would think things get better with age, but they only get scratched and change their color.

This is neither an accusation nor a complaint. Its recognizing reality. Things change with age. George Burns used to say, I can do anything at eighty that I could do when I was twenty. Which gives you an idea what terrible shape I was in when I was twenty. Bob Hope said, I dont feel old. I dont feel anything until noon. Then its time for my nap. These gentlemen knew what they were talking about, because they were telling jokes, singing, and dancing even after they celebrated their hundredth birthdays. Of course, they told their jokes a bit more slowly, sang a bit more softly, and danced a bit more carefullyand they also had a few minor scratches and some discolorationbut they didnt let their age stop them.

These people understood the effects of age. Some people dont. The ones who dont understand aging are the young. Theyve never experienced it, and they think they never will. However, that doesnt stop them from considering themselves experts in the field. They keep trying to tell the older folks how to enjoy being older.

Cmon, Pop, they say. Come to the movies with us. Itll be fun.

No, itll be sitting in a seat staring at a screen. At home, I can sit in a seat and stare at anything I want to stare at. If I get tired while staring, I can close my eyes, take a nap, and not worry about what I missed on the screen.

Cmon, Pop, they say. Come bowling with us. Its fun.

No. Its not fun; its bowling. It entails moving parts of my body that havent moved that way in years and dont particularly want to move that way today. And tomorrow, when I try to get out of bed, those same body parts will get their revenge on me for what I put them through today. Thats not fun.

Age is not a bad thing; it just has some nasty side effects. It used to take me fifteen minutes to drive to the local library. Now it takes me forty-five minutes. The library is still the same distance away, and the car gets me there just as fast. The car hasnt slowed down at all. However, you have to consider the fifteen-minute drive then add on the fifteen minutes it takes me to get into the car and the fifteen minutes it takes me to get out of the car once I get there. As a result, the portal-to-portal traveling time is forty-five minutes.

Age is like the elevator operator of life. You step in, and he closes the door. He moves the controls, and you go up. Then he opens the door and says, Slim waist and full head of hair get off here. Then he closes the door and you move to the next floor. He announces, OK, this is where memory gets off. The next time the doors open, he says, OK. This is where good hearing gets off... I said, This is where good hearing gets off. And it goes on and on like that. You lose a little bit at each stop.

Of course, growing old is not always that blatant or definitive. Often, we dont even realize its happening, but it is. Once, I went to play some basketball with my nephews. Perhaps I would dazzle them with my ball-handling skills and my dead-eye shooting. One of my relatives fed me the ball around the top of the key, and it seemed like a perfect time to drill a jump shot. Now, to make a jump shot, one has to jump. Its required. Otherwise, they would call it a stand there and throw the ball up shot. So to jump, you have to bend your knees and then spring up from that position, propelling yourself into the air so that you can release the ball before your opponent can jump up and block it. So I bent my knees. When I tried to spring up from that position, my knees didnt get the message. I just stayed in that flexed position, and the guy guarding me just took the ball away from me. It didnt dazzle anyone, and no one threw the ball to me for the rest of the game, which was OK with me.

Sometimes we dont have to resort to denial; our brain does it for us. Recently, I had new photos taken. Thats an ordeal because you have to be charming for the camera. No one wants to look like a grouch in an official portrait. But for a grouch like me, its hard to remain charming for that long.

The photographer posed me, checked the lighting, focused the camera, positioned my hands, and then told me to smile. I told him I was smiling.

He said, Try to smile so that it looks like a smile.

I said, I dont have a smile like that. This is the only smile I have.

He said, Well, try to imitate someone else smiling.

He kept telling me to lift my chin, tilt my head to the left, pull my shoulders back, look to this side, look to that side. Anyway, I tried to do everything he told me and be as charming as possible for the remainder of the shoot.

Then when the pictures came back, they were of some little old man. Mickey Rooney? My grandpa? Who was this man in the picture? That couldnt possibly be me! Could it? But it was.