Fitz's Opinion: Fitz the Geezer lunches with the Golden Guys

The following column is the opinion and analysis of the writer:

Late last summer I turned 65. To celebrate I chained a bench to the mesquite tree in our front yard, raked gravel, yelled at a “punk” javelina to get off my dead lawn, powerlifted a Sonoran hot dog and sprained my entire body.

Aging is not for the old. I noticed this when I started going to lunch with my fellow 60-plus geezers. All we talk about are death and disease. I don’t remember talking about death and disease quite so much when I was 6 at lunch in the cafeteria.

“Did you hear? Tommy. Skinned his knee.”

“No. How old was he? Four? Pablo had an asthma attack!”

“Poor Pablo. Jimmy’s in the hospital.”

“No! Didn’t he just turn 5? So young! What was it?”

“Tonsils.”

“Tonsils are the first to go.”

“I lost a tooth last week. Just fell out!”

“Joey fell. That’s what I heard. Off his bike. Frankie how’s your pee-pee?”

“Doc said it’s all good. Yours?”

“It’s good. I had a good No. 2 this morning.”

“Me, too!”

“Me, too! Let’s order.”

This is how we grown men talk.

“In whose name is your reservation?”

“Prostate Roundtable.”

Today’s special will be Charlie’s Bursitis with a side of Buck’s Melanoma. The Soup? Carlos’ Colitis. And for dessert: Paul’s Prostate Numbers.

“Can I bring you gentlemen anything? Medicare supplemental plans? Burial insurance? Brochures from the Neptune Society?”

“I’ll have the Metamucil cocktail. Make it dirty with two ibuprofen.”

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“Your age is just a number,” says Charlie. Uh huh. Try telling the cop who asks you if you know how fast you were going: ”Officer, a number is just a number.” Try telling St. Peter at the Pearly Gates when he asks you if you knew how high your PSA was: “A number is just a number.”

“I can’t stop doing the math,” said Carlos. “In 20 years I’ll be 85. If I stop sinning and enjoying my life now, I figure I’ll be able to not enjoy the decades of life that I have left — in good health.”

“What? How many Metamucil cocktails have you had?”

The waiter asks if we want bread. We looked at each other as if the evil temptress asked us if we wanted carbs, calories, sugar and premature death due to freshly baked gastronomical pleasure. Carlos caved.

As we dine we turn on each other. “Buck, is it true you’re so old Coronado went to a high school named after you?”

“Henry, I hear you’re so old Doc Holliday gave you your first colonoscopy.” Colon health is our favorite lunchtime topic while eating.

“Yup. He used laudanum and a drill from the Copper Queen Mine. Fitz here can remember when Old Tucson was called New Tucson. Weren’t you here when Reid Park was Jurassic Park?“

We’re comfortable in our own skins. I am. For one thing it’s a loose fit at my age.

Buck told us about his favorite new dispensary, Orthopedica. “They got strains like Scooter, Old Spice, Mellow Yoda, White Light and Medicare Plan THC. A mortician friend told me so many seniors have weed cards that he always masks up during cremations to avoid the contact high.”

I love my friends’ stories but I gotta go home, check the mail and forward the cremation flyers to the estate planners. With our summer heat who needs a cremation plan? When I go, leave me on a bus stop in July so the sun can incinerate me into Old Pueblo powder. Let a passing haboob carry my ashes away.

Pete told us about his tour a new assisted living facility-slash-casino. Their slogan: “Every day’s a crapshoot for our residents.”

“I told my wife, ‘If I’m ever incapacitated pull the plug. And make it look like an accident. I wouldn’t want you to get blamed.’”

Henry asked, “What did she say?”

“Don’t worry. No one would ever blame me.”

Charlie told us about the free “Intro to Medicare“ class he took at the Pima Council On Aging. “I learned there are 4,788,271,556 Medicare plans. There’s Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, Plan DDT, Plan STP, Plan ZZTop and for boomers, Plan CBD.”

“Time to go. Good lunch, fellas. Good luck with your probes this week. Your EDs, STDs and EKGs. Love you guys.”

On my way out Henry said, ”I was looking at myself in the mirror when I was surprised to see my father’s face staring back at me.”

“Are you sure it was your dad’s face?”

“I’d recognize it anywhere. Stray nostril hairs. Long as kitty whiskers. Neck like a tortoise. That’s him. I’m as old as my dad. It’s not possible. Can’t be me. I’m still 7 years old between the ears.”

“Me, too,” I said. “I hear tonsils are the first to go.”