CHARLIE WILSON
A Geezer and Proud
Back when I was a middle-aged modestly successful businessman, I always
kinda dreaded reaching the so-called golden years. I never asked for senior
citizens' discounts or joined the A.A.R.P. because I dreaded being called
a senior citizen.
What I did was the only logical thing I knew to do: I just skipped over
the senior citizen years. I jumped from being middle-aged (I stayed middle-aged
until I was seventy-five) directly into geezerhood.
Something can be said, in fact a heckuva lot can be said, for geezerhood.
You can get by with nearly everything and enjoy more freedoms and a lot
of constraints are lifted. For instance, you can say anything you want to
Republicans and even a Republican will rarely hit an old geezer.
You can say nearly anything you want to your women friends -- or even strange
women -- and they just laugh.
It is also a given that geezers are old males. Whoever heard of a young
or middle-aged geezer? Or a woman geezer? What I am saying is I don't necessarily
think you have to say "that old geezer", you could just say "geezer".
Having said that, I don't mind being called a "geezer" or an "old
geezer" if people will not call me a senior citizen. I have said all
that to say this: I have been called several names, even in local editorials.
I have, among other names, been called a "foolish old coot" and
a "liberal old-goat"
This doesn't bother me because I am innocent. I have absolutely nothing
in common with a gray eight-inch duck. The only thing I have in common with
an old goat is one time, in a moment of insanity, I went deer hunting with
a militia lookin' bunch and stayed in the wilderness three days without
a bath and I did smell like one.
The only thing I would really resent being called is a conservative. Or
being called bipartisan
I don't like that word and, in fact, I don't believe bipartisanship exists.
It is a figment of Newt and Trent's imagination.
Just look at Fred Thompson's committee in the Senate or crazy Dan Burton's
committee in the House. They both say they are bipartisan. If those yokels
are bipartisan then I am a one-legged Turkish belly dancer.
The way I look at it is, if we have bipartisanship, then why the hell have
two parties?
I am qualified to talk about these issues because I was a political operator
over here in Eastern Oklahoma when Carville was teaching math in a little
old school in Louisiana.
I once handled a friend's campaign for county weigher here in LeFlore County
and I am the one who coined the phrase, "It's the weight, stupid."
Little did we know that the Oklahoma Legislature would subsequently abolish
the office in one of the biggest dirty-trick moves in State history.
They said they did it with bipartisan support and used the flimsy excuse
that we didn't need a county weigher because we had no scales.
Charlie Wilson is a former house painter, mayor, longtime school board
member and recently retired merchant who operates a small coffee bar at
the Salvation Army shop in Heavener, Okla. A version of his column appears
in the Oklahoma Observer.
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