When do you start "growing old"?
07.06.2025 06:58
“You don’t waste time, do you? I’ve got no date, so I’m just gonna sit here and shoot the bull with a few other deadheads in this dorm. Luck, though.”
“I thought you had a date,” I said.
“The great Dean Tenley. Brought down on his first date in college. By an ingenue, no less, and a few tears. But look, why don’t you try again, maybe change your approach?”
If Jesus was crucified by Governor Pontius Pilate, why does the Quran deny his death?
“Date’s over. Let’s go get some beer.”
When I entered college, I was learning how to cope on my own for the first time. It was 1968. Everything seemed in transition, especially our culture. Recreational drugs were widely available, the birth control pill was changing sexual mores. Time-honored ethics were being challenged. And I lived in the men’s dorm. I won’t say it was Animal House, but it felt like rules were often an inconvenient nuisance, and so was conventional morality. I was just trying to get a handle on this new life.
I sat stunned. Some of the guys in our dorm grabbed some test copies up and were gathering at a table working out the answers together as quickly as they could. I did not join them, even began to leave the room, but I stopped, went back to my desk, grabbed the test copy, and went down the hall to a vacant room. Then I looked at the questions. As my eyes ran over them, I put a checkmark on those I was confident about. The ones without a check, I began to research in my textbook. My test wasn’t till 11 am, and since it was only 8, I knew I had time. Guys all over the dorm had copies of that test. Even if the prof realized they’d been stolen, it would be too late to make another test.
“That she’s quiet, kinda shy, but nice. That she makes good grades.”
“She started crying.”
“I led her out of the theater and took her home.”
Wright State stuns No. 1 Vanderbilt with historic upset in baseball regionals - Yahoo Sports
“Well, the hell with you. I’m glad to get outta this crummy place anyway. See how you do paying the rent alone.”
“She started crying?”
“Nah. I just wanna forget the whole damn night. Let’s go get a six-pack.”
Why do I smell bad even though I have good hygiene?
Almost from the start, I wished I hadn’t. I found him to be a pain to tolerate every day, and he probably thought the same about me. He asked me a couple of times if it was working out okay. I’d grit my teeth and say yes. Finally, after a contentious argument about washing the dishes one day, I said, “Larry, I’m going to be honest. We just don’t see eye to eye.”
“And?”
“Yes.”
Meanwhile, I was having trouble adjusting to college. Studies were more demanding than I’d ever imagined. I hated my Western Civ course. Studied nonstop the night before the final. That morning, this guy Rob, a teacher’s assistant, popped into the dorm with a handful of papers. He began giving them out like candy. I looked down at the one on my desk, the one he’d just put there. It was a copy of the Western Civ final.
He said, “You wanting me to leave?”
My roommate Dean kept talking about a girl in his English 101 class. He named her and asked if I’d seen her. I hadn’t, but he promised me she was the most beautiful freshman on campus. He said, “I’ve got my sights set on her.”
Mountaineers Defeat Kentucky to Advance to Super Regionals - West Virginia University Athletics
To me, becoming “old” is less about age than about maturing and accepting responsibility and treating others as you wish to be treated. It is a positive thing. And that really is a lifelong process. Even at 74, you can keep learning and improving at that.
As it turned out, I made a B on the exam. Not so hot for someone who had the test copy beforehand. Did it bother my conscience? Not at the time. I rationalized that, after all, I’d only checked up on two of the questions and that I’d have ended up with a B anyway. Where Dean Tenley had begun early to accept responsibility for his actions, thereby beginning the early process of growing older, I’d not matured from my error, had only rationalized it. It was, however, my only experience with cheating in college. Gradually, I began to think more responsibly.
Yet it was the smartest thing to say. I did have to move to a cheaper apartment, though. Haha!
While you sleep, these bugs throw a party on your face - East Idaho News
That evening Dean was already back by 9. He strode into our room looking bewildered.
But Dean didn’t forget. He asked her out again. She accepted, he got to know her, and though they were on and off a bit, by their junior year they were engaged. They married shortly after graduation, a happy ending that became a happy marriage as long as I knew them. Dean Tenley had begun the process of getting old early in life. He was learning how to behave.
“You honorable son of a bitch!”
Looking back, I think my greatest strides in becoming “old,” came after I married at age 31. Having been single all those years had made me less flexible, more prone to self-centeredness. After marriage, I began to learn so much more about give and take, about sharing and caring for another, about learning to put someone else’s needs ahead of mine.
“What happened?”
“No. Not honorable. I should have spent time just talking, getting to know her, but I was just frustrated.”
How can one learn to talk frankly?
“Yes.”
“That I’ve got a date with her tonight, buddy.”
Maybe you begin to mature - to grow old, in a sense - when you begin to realize that you have responsibilities, to your employer, to your school or college, to your family, mostly to other people. Maybe that’s when you first begin growing old, yet far from a negative thing, this may be a blessing. It can happen for different people at different ages.
Pokémon Legends Z-A Is Now Up for Preorder on Switch and Switch 2 - IGN
“And?”
“What did you do?”
I was still learning not to ever lie, though, not even small lies, not even when in the tightest of spots. Took a couple of painful moments to fully get that one. After graduation, I worked briefly at a department store. Didn’t make much, so I agreed to accept an old pal, Larry, as someone to split the apartment rent with.
ISS Research & Development Conference Cancellation - NASA Watch
“Whadda you know about her?” I said.
“Ugh! We went to a movie. After it gets going good, I put my hand on her knee.”