Lewis Wickes Hine: Untitled [Furman Owens, 12-year-old mill worker,
Augusta, Georgia] (1909, printed 1929)

"…wondering what this Septuagenarian should do for a next adventure."

I have just lately started realizing that I am actually over seventy years old, a genuine Septuagenarian. No job description accompanied this designation, and I could not discern any clear delineation that accompanied the transition into it. I continued as I had seemingly always done, though changes had been steadily encroaching on my habits. A decade ago, before I'd even turned sixty-five, I took no prescribed medications. Sure, my triglycerides were alarmingly high, but I lied to myself that I got a bye because I had inherited the condition, just as if everyone else with it somehow hadn't. I hadn't even experienced cataract surgery back then, as I was still a relative spring chicken. Then I inexplicably began aging.

The cataract surgery began the upward spiral for me. My blood pressure spiked during prep for that procedure, so the surgeon refused to perform it. The Muse insisted, as only The Muse can insist, that it was time for me to acquire a physician, for I hadn't had one since before I'd turned fifty. That doctor found a few minor imperfections in me, which required him to prescribe certain medications. I instantly became a regular customer at the local drug store's drive-up window, there seemingly every week, since it seemed impossible to synchronize the prescriptions so that they would need refilling simultaneously. The cataract surgery was rescheduled and performed successfully once the lens installed in the first procedure was reattached after it had inexplicably come loose during use. After, I felt exponentially more vulnerable.

I was still able to mow my lawn with an antique push mower then, justifying the exertion as decent aerobic exercise. I'd experience some aches and pains, but nothing terribly chronic, though my range of motion slowly became less fluid and more painful. I suffered an inexplicable bout of bursitis from repetitive painting motion and hired a professional to finish a job I would have previously easily completed myself. My barefoot shoes wore out after at least a decade of wear, and I couldn't for the life of me find an acceptable replacement pair. This had become a painfully repetitive feature of my life as my preferred styles went out of fashion. I would still look spiffy in bell-bottoms if I could get them. Gratefully, the American Song Book didn't change even though cRap like Hamilton began taking to the Broadway stage.

I am now "of an age," as even I used to say before I knew what that phrase disclosed. I still don't know. I do know that I increasingly feel my age, whatever that means. My painter, Kurt, and I cut a colorful shadow as we work together, two Septuagenarians limping through another procedure. We have been painting porch rail parts for the prior few weeks, finally zeroing in on completion. Kurt mentioned yesterday that if I play my cards right, I might never have to engage in this sort of wholesale effort featuring weeks of making only painstaking progress. With luck, he said, I might have to refinish a window sill or an area around a faucet, but no more scaffolding-assisted productions in my future. I rather enjoyed participating in those productions, even when they overwhelmed my fading capabilities. I had not been hoping for a cessation of those particular hostilities, for they left me feeling momentarily indispensable. How will I express my indispensability in the future?

Septuagenarians are said to lack much of a future. Most of us have incurable heart disease. Our prescriptions stabilize our chronic conditions for now, but won't forever. Each of us is failing along rather predictable lines. Even those of us still exercising understand that we hold a fading hand. What once renewed us will eventually become beyond us. I wasn't quite fifty when The Muse and me discovered this house a quarter of a century ago, and I commenced to dig out about half the plantings the prior owners had installed. I chased evergreen roots halfway to China and managed to more or less stabilize the yard. I stripped the house and repainted it twice. Now, the porch remodeling project, over two years since we started it, threatens to finish and leave me unemployed, wondering what this Septuagenarian should do for a next adventure.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #FollowingChapters, #PureSchmaltz