After almost eight decades, some never stop acting up
By Chuck Wiser, I write the words to share what my eyes see and my heart feels
One of my main Wramblings for today started out with what is now a very sweet compliment, but wasn’t always. When mentioning to the sweet lady at a Wellsville business establishment who and which will remain nameless for this piece…but this piece is brought to you thanks to their, and my, interactions with each other.
Having a “senior moment,” when I couldn’t recall something that I had intended to say, I apologized excusing my forgetfulness to my rapidly approaching age of 80. She responded by saying: “You don’t look or act that old.” Translated, that means I don’t act my age and at this age it is a tremendous compliment. I forget exactly when, years wise, my mother used to tell me to “act your age” but I’m pretty sure I was still a toddler.
As I am wont to do these days, I referred to the “Google gods” and the depth and width of explanations was amazing. First noted on the list was the use of the term “toddler.” Wikipedia includes toddler in its age classifications as noted herein: “Some age-related development periods with defined intervals include: newborn (ages 0 – 2 months); infant (ages 3 – 11 months); toddler (ages 1 – 2 years); preschooler (ages 3 – 4 years); school-aged child (ages 5 – 12 years); teens (ages 13 – 19 years); adolescence (ages 10 – 25 years); college age (ages 18 – 25 years). I editorialized and “bold-ly” highlighted the terms. I don’t fully agree with the age brackets but who I am to question Wikipedia.
The explanation of where the “Act you age” phrase added another variation that I don’t recall, or was admonished with, and that is “Act your age not your shoe size.” Oddly enough, I did exactly that at 13 years old when I already was wearing size 13 shoe. Of course, that use of the term implies the non-British or European metric numbering system.
Tying several varying definitions and variations breaks down basically into my explanation to; “Act in a manner appropriate to you level of maturity.” Of course, even that interpretation is flawed by varying understanding or belief of just what “maturity” is.
Other explanations or variations of the simplified “Act your age…” phrase include; stop being infantile, behave in a manner expected of one’s age, behave in accordance with one’s expected level of maturity, stop behaving childish, be less juvenile, be more responsible.
And…I learned something once again. My day is now complete. When I copied the items noted above in “Italics,” they were blue in color which told me they were somehow still connected to their source. Searching for a way to remove that link taught me that they were “hyperlinks” and that moving to them in a mousey way (pointer mousing) and “right clicking” offered the option to “remove hyperlink.” I’m not sure exactly why but if I selected one item it worked fine, but if I selected the entire group the “remove hyperlink” option was not active in the “right click” options presented.
In the Sun-Bird room I am distracted as I have to continually interrupt my typing as the motion in the top of my vision draws my eyes to the visits of the Orioles and Grosbeaks at the feeders.
Driving on nearly any road in my four county area including Allegany, Cattaraugus, Livingston and Steuben is a challenge, more so I believe, than usual. It seems particularly busy with road construction, or deconstruction, on nearly every road I travel. One lane traffic, traffic controllers both human and otherwise, are plentiful. Someone must have found a bunch of budget money lying around as some of the work projects are pretty extensive. There are actually too many to list herein, but if you’ve been traveling the area roads this Spring you will understand what I mean.
Judging by the enormity of the stockpiled gravel in the Back River Road Gravel suppository, er… wait I mean depository, there will be continuous road work going on throughout the summer. The gravel pile has never been higher, nor larger, over the time we’ve lived here starting in the early 70’s. There is a similar pile on the top of what “locals” call East Hill at the intersection of County routes 31 and 31A. Mentioning that particular intersection again reminded me that once again earlier this week I signaled a left turn as I passed 31A driving on 31. Back “in the day” (50’s and early 60’s) Rte. 31 was not primary I guess, as there was a stop sign on 31 and you had to stop and make a right turn, necessitating the use of your turn signal.
Having mentioned “using your turn signal” I didn’t realize that it was optional if you didn’t feel inclined to let other traffic know your intentions at an intersection with choices. That’s almost as bad as the invisibility of the stop sign at the south end of Back River Road where it connects with Rte. 31. Apparently some people can see it, and others can’t.
This road construction activity gives me the feeling of “being hemmed in.” Yesterday I took a shortcut returning home from the east end of Wellsville in an attempt to by-pass the road surface “milling” on Cty. Rte. 9. Many years ago I knew a series of dirt backroads that would circle me around Scio and onto Plum Bottom Road between Belmont and Scio. Somewhere along the line I made a wrong turn choice in the Cooley Hill Road area and it took me 45 minutes on backroads seldom traveled, and one, even now, closed. I think I was on at least 10 different, some aptly named, other other mixed category paved/dirt roads such as Waughbrook Road.
Raise your hand 🙋♂️if you think we’ve had enough rain for a while. This year reminds me of one year in the 70’s or early 80’s, while we were into the family camping mode and had a site at Deer Run Campground on Jones Road off Cty. Rte. 12 between Wellsville and Andover. It was cold and rainy almost continuously. It didn’t deter us from camping, but it certainly crimped our style. Pictured here are my wife and I, in my normal camping attire, along with Dan Spangler, former owner of Deer Run Campground, and one of the other “Family of Three” members Larry (LJ) Muscato, now passed away, but one of my “partners in crime” who I miss dearly. I haven’t used my Family of Three poem recently but this weather, our experiences, and my memory are joining forces to prompt its inclusion as my “poem of the week.” I sincerely hope that everyone reading this has had the honor of such a friends relationship.
I will Wramble off these Wrambling’s now, with a poem honoring our lifetime, for some way too short, friendship with the Geyer’s and Muscato’s.
If you have any comments, questions or concerns email me at IM.Wiserdad@gmail.com
