The Love Song of Jim McInnis

I grow old, I grow old/I shall wear the cuffs of my trousers rolled ...

These thoughts intrude my slow freight train of thought typically in fall and winter. Today they intruded in Starbucks. That's not right; nor was it right that I was the oldest guy in the store, at least until the apparently two-days-older guy emerged from the prep kitchen after a refreshing break. We exchanged Secret Boomer Knowing Glances: Pretend I'm not here/Not to worry, I'll be there soon enough. Camraderie interrupted by the inheritor of the earth: I'll take your order HERE NOW (HURRY IT UP will you)! What I go through to keep the guyses in chocolate, sakes!

It wasn't that long ago that I thought myself numbered among the inheritors of the earth, thanks to my mastery of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, having studied it for at least two days in high school English. What a wimp, snickered I knowingly -- obsessing over th' minutiae of his days! Not us -- we're the greatest generation ever sired! CBS News said so!

At some point I forgot my life rule of never letting my inner thoughts cross my lips, because I blabbed something about my Prufrock thoughts at the next family get-together, no doubt to show off my Major Learning Education. My Uncle Jim, the mailman, immediately remarked, "You know, I know him."

"Who?"

"Tom Eliot."

(Two...three...four...how in the world am I gonna score?)"The Chancellor of Washington University? Well, yeah, they're family ... but that's Thomas Hopkinson Eliot. I'm talking about Thomas Stearns Eliot, the poet. Who lives in England." (Which is not, last time I checked, on the US post office's standard letter carrier routes for St. Louis. Nyah!)

"So am I. The family has a house off Lindell. He comes home a lot to visit. Always has a good word or two. He autographed one of his books for me. Next time you come over I'll show ya. That poem you like is in it."

(But wait! There's more!)

"Yeah, I see old people like that on my route all the time. Growing old's a bitch. For some people."

(Wait for it ...)

"But not for me!"

Good ol' Uncle Jim. After he retired, he was the one who organized my parents' annual jaunts to Las Vegas. Seems they always wanted to go; seems he was the one who asked if that was so, why didn't they -- and when he put it like that, they had no answer. He would come to my collegiate Works o Art with my parents, and he would challenge me on my jejune public foolishness.

He died a few years ago, Alzheimer's. My aunt tells me it was horrible, and I believe her. She waved me off from visiting -- warned me that he wouldn't know me, and I wouldn't know him. So I hold his memory as he was, which is probly right. Because that way, he didn't grow old. And he would kick my hinder just like he used to if he thought for one second I was getting maudlin because of Starbucks, fergawdsakes.

So I believe I shall do something useful now; I believe he would expect that from me.