Joe Ororke says,
“I wish you wouldn’t call yourself “old man.” I’m as old as you and older and I won’t call myself “old man.” You got at least twenty years before you call yourself “old man.” And that’s just an older man. My youngest son calls me “old man.” He’s got a respect problem. I should give him a copy of your book “Why Johnny Can’t Think.” Maybe he’ll learn something from it. At the moment, he’s like so many people I know. He knows it all. Where have I heard that before? Sorry to hear you’re feeling under the weather, old chap. Do recovery quickly. Please. We’re out here waiting to hear your next bushel of knowledge. Not wisdom, mind you. Knowledge. As you mentioned, there is a difference. Wisdom, in my not humble opinion, is not often found among professors. Babbling,yes. Wisdom, no. Knowledge sometimes. Until it changes the next day. If we get lucky you might tell us more about the Beachhead. There’s got to be more than a Beachhead in this movie. We can’t just establish the Beachhead and linger there getting a suntan. The Beachhead is just a temporary gig. You know what we gotta do next, don’t you? Something Bill Rusher wouldn’t do. ”
Middle age starts officially at forty but has no official end. But when you hit sixty and certainly when you hit seventy you are no longer “middle aged.” You are probably right that there is a term I hadn’t thought of, “older” rather than “old.”
Roman legion units were not exempt from being called up for combat duty until they were sixty. And legion units in their fifties were not called up last. They were considered ready for duty.
And I’m not talking about lying behind an automatic rifle. I mean all hand-to-hand.
I don’t like to use “older” for myself because it sounds a bit subtle or pedantic. In your case it is not because you have a different image of how the word “old” applies to you. To you it means debilitated.
It may be my raising in the Deep South, but an old warrior or an old man is a title of respect to me.
“It ain’t the years, it’s the mileage.” I feel I have the miles and the experience that most men who live past a hundred will never have.
Anybody who counts on my being physically debilitated is in for a very rude shock.
I was at church a couple of years ago and a very friendly, gentle elderly man who was an usher, loved by all, brushed into me as we were squeezing out into the aisle. He was as hard as rock. I am a strong man, but I could feel that he, though he certainly intended no such thing, would have shoved me out of the way if he intended to. I don’t know what he did for a living all those years, but it was something heavy.
When I say “old” I mean something different from your image of the word.
Men who respect their commander often refer to him as “the old man,” though he is seldom as old as sixty and may not have reached middle age. That is the sense in which I like to use it here.
#1 by Derek on 01/04/2006 - 3:07 am
When I was in the Navy my first CO was about 45. He had a picture perfect, photographic memory. Sharp as all hell with 2 masters from the war college and a history B.A. from VMI.
He is ten years younger than my father and led me places I never thought I would go. I never call my dad old man. I called my CO that name all the time.
#2 by joe rorke on 01/04/2006 - 9:11 pm
Ha! Ha! I figured you’d respond to that one. Anything to get you thinking, Bob. I wanna make sure those old cells keep firing. I just finished listening to “I Support The UN,” a talk you gave recently. Wow, is that packed with information. It is for me. I learn something every day reading your stuff. It’s powerful stuff. I wish it was broadcast nationwide. Instead, I get Larry King talking about my friends in the coalmines. That has its place. But your stuff is far more important. Since I don’t think you’re going to quit it, I think I’ll flip and start using your “everybody” and “nobody” manner of speaking. For example, “Everybody knows you’re not an old man” and “nobody calls you an old man.” Now that’s my idea of fun.