Friday, October 23, 2015

Descending branch

The hotel I'm staying in covering this grading job has a breakfast buffet every morning. It's...well, it's belly-timber and it's free. So I was sitting at the high table in the center of the sterile room, eating my not-awful eggs and sausage and orange juice when a man's voice behind my right side started;

"Good mor...oh, um, hi. Sorry. For a moment you looked just like my dad."

I turned to the speaker. He was a tall, athletic man in what I think of as "High Middle Age"; mid-thirties to mid-forties. His wife was a similarly pleasant, well-kempt middle-aged middle class woman and he seemed genuinely pleased to see someone, even a stranger, who reminded him of his father.

I just looked at him for a moment, because my only thought was "Wait...you're middle-aged, so am I...how the hell can I look like your dad?"

I must have looked strange, because he began to lean back in the slightly embarrassed manner people adopt when they mistake a stranger for someone they know. I couldn't stand that troubled look in his eyes, or the concern on his wife's face so I smiled and returned some sort of happy triviality and we parted to our own troubles.

I looked for an answer in my congealing eggs and found none, except that the man was correct; if I had a son when I was 18 he would be the same age as his today.

And that I am no longer middle-aged. I am, instead, some middle-aged man's dad.

4 comments:

Ael said...

Yep, and it beats the hell out of the alternative.

P said...


At some point around the age of 50 we stop lamenting the loss of youth and come to take a certain quiet pride in the mere fact of survival.

Anonymous said...

You deserve a pat on the back for not calling the man: "Sonny".

Pluto said...

P: "At some point around the age of 50 we stop lamenting the loss of youth and come to take a certain quiet pride in the mere fact of survival."

I'm not lamenting the loss of youth (mostly filled with pain and embarrassment) but I still have major challenges dealing with the (so far minor) memory gaps, increasing number of aches and pains, and vision problems. I will be glad to reach the "quiet pride" stage, if it ever comes.

I would have had major difficulties if I was there resisting smiling and calling him "Sonny." Serves the young whippersnapper right for making you feel disjointed with time.