"Boy, you are getting old!" Those are the exact words my wife said to me Sunday afternoon when my remark to having two beautiful, buxom, blond waitresses chatting with each other only a few feet away from me was: "I wish they would take their conversation somewhere else so that I can see the TV."
We were dining at a Texas Roadhouse restaurant in San Marcos Sunday following more than five hours of walking the outlet mall in San Marcos. Jose Valverde had just blown a save opportunity for the Astros on the big screen TV above the bar in the restaurant and I was craning my neck to see the 'Stros lame attempt at a comeback in the bottom of the ninth against the Detroit Tigers. The waitresses, most likely among the most attractive students attending nearby Texas State College, were pure eye candy with their tight-fitting T-shirts, bright white teeth and gorgeous tan legs sticking out of their khaki shorts. And all I wanted was for them to move so that I could see the TV!
"Boy, you are getting old" Gupton. After Peggy pointed out to me what I had just said, it hit me like a ton of bricks that it was true . . . I am definitely getting old! My wife and I had just spent the weekend in New Braunfels with the Schlitterbahn nearby and tube rentals in close proximity in every direction you turn, and all we did was visit the antique shops, sip the free wine samples at the winery, and bitch about the heat while hanging out in Greune. Not once did either of us even suggest putting our fat asses in the ice cold water of the Comal or the Gaudalupe rivers.
As much younger newlyweds in our twenties, we both looked forward to our annual treks to New Braunfels and San Marcos, often making the vacation trip accompanied by our good friends Bill and Sabrina Lott and others. Now we have become official old farts!
But nothing drove the point home more than when I recently received my latest AARP magazine in the mail and who is on the cover but little Opie Taylor himself, Ron Howard. Man, I am really getting old!
Ron, who went by Ronnie Howard when he costarred in the movie "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" with Glenn Ford when he was a small child, and then rocketed to nationwide notoriety and fame as Andy Griffith's son on the popular TV sitcom, "The Andy Griffith Show," is the same age as my older brother Cody. Cody is now 55 years old and for me to admit to myself that either Cody or Ron Howard are "old geezers" would have one single followup statement: "So am I." Now 52 years old, I used to proudly state that I am the same age as Warren Moon, the former Houston Oilers quarterback, and Bob Horner, the former Atlanta Braves third baseman, and Larry Bird, the former Boston Celtics superstar, and Tom Hanks.
Hey, Tom Hanks is still a (not a former) popular movie star with all of his hair and starring in popular movies being directed by, none other than Ron Howard. But the majority of the stars I mentioned above who are now also 52 years old are "former" somethings. Their glory days are in the past. But they say that age is only a number if you don't allow it to get the best of you. Just keep plugging away at whatever it is you love to do, waking up each morning with a bright outlook and plans to greet the new day with hopes of always bettering yourself. No matter how much older you get, it is factual that you can never, ever go back in time. We must all keep pushing ahead, for the future is all each of us has.
The majority of Americans in my age bracket grew up with Ronnie Howard and his younger brother Clint Howard, who starred in the TV show "Gentle Ben" and has had bit parts in practically every movie his big brother Ron has directed. Both Ron and Clint inherited the follicle genes of their father, Rance Howard, who has been bald or balding since he appeared in guest shots in the 1960s in many of the TV projects his two sons were involved in. Looking at Ron Howard today (pictured above with a baseball cap hiding his bald pate and in the old photo below with his TV father Andy Griffith) one cannot help but notice the similarity in his appearance and that of his father.
In recent years I have often approached my bathroom mirror to shave and brush my teeth and found myself saying, "Rex, is that you?" The Tracy Gupton of today, also follicly-challenged and sporting graying hair and whiskers and facial wrinkles that seemed to appear out of nowhere, is a constant reminder of what my late father, Rex Gupton, used to look like. I'm sure Ron Howard realizes the same thing when gazing at his reflection in mirrors and looking at photographs of himself as a man in his fifties.
"I want to do this until I drop," Ron Howard told AARP magazine for its July/August edition, speaking of his love of making movies. "When John Huston was directing his last movie, he was in a wheelchair and on oxygen. That's my idea of a good goal."
Hanks stars in Howard's latest film, "Angels & Demons," a sequel to "The DaVinci Code." Dan Brown's novel "Angels & Demons" is actually a prequel to his highly successful novel "The DaVinci Code," but I guess one would have to call the new movie a "sequel" since it follows "The DaVinci Code," which raked in more than $200 million at the box office. I saw "The DaVinci Code" at the Lake Jackson movie theater with my son Bret but have not yet seen "Angels & Demons."
The newest Howard-Hanks film venture is the twentieth film Ron Howard has directed. He won an Oscar in 2002 for best director for the movie "A Beautiful Mind" starring Russell Crowe, and has been nominated for other films he directed, including last year's "Frost/Nixon" starring Frank Langella.
And this will really age you even more, knowing that Ron Howard, the father of four, is now a grandfather of a two-year-old grandson.
Oh, there are many other barometers in my life that tell me I'm getting older. The mirror should be all I need as proof, but there are numerous other things as well, like hating the way I look now in photographs, the frequent aches and pains from arthritis in my joints, the lack of energy and desire to pry myself away from the sedentary lifestyle I have become prone to adapting in recent years, and having taken the same negative approach to the sounds coming out of my radio and TV speakers anytime modern music is being played that my own parents took when my siblings and I tried to get them to listen to and like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and any other band that was popular in the 1960s.
Rap is crap. Hip-Hop should be flushed and the screaming white bands that are popular today are just not my cup of tea. Yes, my friends, I am getting older and the signs are so damned obvious that I no longer even attempt to camouflage them. My opinions are what they are, and I find myself more likely to voice them any and every time I believe it necessary. As a younger man I practiced restraint with more regularity than today.
But hey, being "regular" is now a thing of the past too. At my current age I find myself always checking out the location of the bathrooms in restaurants and sporting events I attend, just as a precaution. It is part of getting older, OK?
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