Earlier this summer, I was sitting on my porch shortly after dawn, watching the breeze turn the leaves in the trees along Cumberland Avenue and wondering once again if I would one day become a grumpy old man.
Earlier this summer, I was sitting on my porch shortly after dawn, watching the breeze turn the leaves in the trees along Cumberland Avenue and wondering once again if I would one day become a grumpy old man. For a number of years, this possibility had haunted me, a fear of being transformed into one of those sour senior citizens I had met from time to time, miserable old dogs who were always snarling at anyone unfortunate enough to cross their path. In my worst moments, I envisioned myself rheumatically hunched in a chair before the dead embers of a fireplace, wrapped in a grey cloak, carping about the vicissitudes of fortune, and swinging an oaken cane at any grandchild unfortunate enough to wander into range.
Then it hit me, one of those tiny revelations that on occasion strike in the shower or at a quiet moment over a cup of coffee. “Hey,” I thought suddenly, “you’re old and you’re not grumpy.”
That epiphany has since brought me a great deal of comfort.
Grumpy old men in the movies may make us laugh, but grumpy old men in real life can blacken the brightest day. I am referring to those grizzled crabs who look as if a smile might crack apart their faces, who when casually asked “How are you?” give an account of their health as if reading from a medical chart, who regard young people as sex-crazed, drug-addicted, brain-dead, and beyond redemption. These are the pickle-pusses with an addled view of time: to a grumpy old man, the golden age in which he grew up is forever blasted away, the present is a wasteland of decadence, and the future promises such desolate horrors that grumpy old men universally declare themselves happy that they will not live to see these coming catastrophes.
During my years of fearing that I might mutate into one of these creatures, I observed several variations of the Grumpy Old Man (GOM) whose rancor and surliness especially alarmed me. Most dreaded of all was the possibility of becoming a Grumpy Old Grandpa (GOG). The GOG values peace and quiet over the chaos created by children and grandchildren. Seeking this tranquility, some affluent GOGs of my acquaintance relocated after retirement into gated, childless communities in Florida or Arizona, silent, uncluttered neighborhoods devoid of tricycles and soccer balls. Here the rules governing guests and usage of the community’s facilities ensure few visits from families with children. In lieu of being tormented by toddlers sticky with jelly or brash teenagers with their music and opinions, the GOG who lives in these elder-havens finds himself free to bicker with his neighbors over such issues as trash pick-up and appropriate dress for the clubhouse.
Some GOGs go to even greater pains to keep family at a distance. Several years ago, one man bragged to me that the palatial house he’d built in the Smoky Mountains, a mini-mansion perched high above a valley, had only two bedrooms, a feature deliberately conceived to discourage visits from his children.
When forced to be in contact with their offspring, GOGs react by unleashing a running bitter commentary on the behavior and lifestyle of their children and grandchildren. “That car must have cost you a fortune.” “How much do you spend every month on those fancy wines?” “You have heard of birth control, right?” “We didn’t teach you to raise kids this way.” “That kid is headed for jail.” “You’re raising a wuss.” “When I was your age, I was up at five p.m. delivering papers in the snow.” “You throw like a girl.” And then the clincher: “I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be bringing up kids in today’s world.”
A second subset of the GOM that chilled my heart was the Grumpy Old Bastard (GOB). These are the snarling storm troopers who unleash their invective on helpless checkout clerks, who leave a skilled waiter a one-dollar tip on a thirty-dollar bill, who swallow their wine with no evidence of enjoyment but who take great pleasure in bringing pain and embarrassment to others.
Some GOBs hide behind their infirmities while assailing their victims. After all, they reason, who’s going to punch out a wobbly-legged old man wearing his trousers up to his chest? At the luncheon following my mother’s funeral many years ago, one of these GOBs, a distant relative renowned for his hurtful wisecracks, said to me, “I don’t know why everyone’s so sad. Sooner or later, everyone bites the dust. I saw lots of dead guys in Vietnam.” I was twenty-five years his junior, and despite my respect for veterans, it was all I could do to refrain from knocking him over his head with his own cane, but beating up a guy who has trouble walking and breathing seems unlikely to win the approbation of those around me.
Then there was the Grumpy Old Ephebiphobiac(GOE). Ephebiphobiacs are adults who hate or fear young people. These GOEs consider anyone under forty a mental midget living a life of debauchery. They hate young people for their mistakes, for their joi de vivre, and for the fact that they are young while they, the GOEs, are old. The young can also terrify them. Having watched some television news broadcast about a knockout attack on an eighty-year-old retiree, GOEs conclude that vast hordes of young punks are roaming the streets looking especially for old guys just like him.
Finally, I feared becoming a Grumpy Old Conservative (GOC). This fear was more real to me than the others because for a time in my life I had been a Grumpy Young Conservative (GYC). As a GYC in my thirties, I railed against the world, denounced the culture, and engaged in heated political debates with some of my relatives. Eventually—and I am not sure how—I decided I was playing a losing game. I didn’t like who I was becoming. Hubert Humphrey, the liberal Democrat who lost in the presidential race of 1968 to Richard Nixon, was described in the media as a “happy warrior,” and I took him for my model and became a conservative “happy warrior,” raising questions rather than launching attacks and using humor rather than bile for my artillery.
Doubtless you can find other subsets of the GOM. These categories were, as I say, the ones I most feared.
In those days of my apprehensions, I also considered causes for the creation of a GOM. Certainly failing physical powers and debilitating illnesses might play hell with the emotions and cause one to become crotchety. A man accustomed to building rock walls in his garden or driving around town in his convertible—young men driving convertibles are as rare a sight as a covey of nuns in habit—will suffer when life hands him a cane, a walker, impaired eyesight, a portable oxygen tank, or a revoked driver’s license. Though I myself, for reasons I cannot fathom, remain in relative good health, I can sympathize with those made contentious by disease or illness.
Television and the news media can also create the GOM. A man who worked all his life is unaccustomed to spending his days in front of a big screen, but now that he has slowed down, the idiot box sometimes becomes his closest companion. One eighty-year-old man I know watches Fox News six hours per day. Though I myself don’t own a television—I get my news online from written sources—I can understand this curmudgeon’s spleen. Were I to watch Fox News, or any news media, for six hours a day, the world would appear a broken, frightening place, leaving me with dark thoughts and a rotten attitude.
Most likely, however, the GOM becomes a Grumpy Old Men because he was a Grumpy Young Men (GYM). If, as the adage goes, we all wear the faces we deserve by age forty, then the same surely holds true for our personalities. The GOM is therefore likely the offspring of a GYM, that not-so-distant ancestor who peppered his wife and children with criticism, who brought a chill into the office on the coldest day, who looked at everyone he encountered with the gimlet eye of a carnival huckster battling a hangover. That grouchy old codger you see haranguing his beaten-down old wife was once upon a time a grouchy young codger haranguing his beaten-down young wife. I have long known a man, a staunch conservative, who has ridden a horse named Bitterness for his entire adult life. About to turn sixty, he remains a rude, brusque man whose rare laughter is as brittle as broken glass. He has no close friends and annoys his acquaintances. He is the quintessential example of a Grumpy Young Man who gave birth to a Grumpy Old Man.
In With Charity Toward None: A Fond Look at Misanthropy, Florence King celebrates the misanthrope and the grouch. I own this book and frequently read from it, for Miss King is a witty, talented writer who can make me laugh aloud. Renowned as a misanthrope, and perhaps a Grumpy Old Woman, she glorifies the crotchets, grouches, codgers, and people haters she has known and loved. Like the ones found in movies, Miss King’s grumps are amusing. Indeed, she makes grumpiness and misanthropy appear attractive.
But being a GOM is not for me. Even had I desired to become one, I just can’t see myself as a cantankerous curmudgeon. For whatever reason, I just don’t have a GOM inside me.
Now back to my coffee, my books, and this beautiful Saturday morning.
Addendum: Some Signs That You Might Be A Grumpy Old Man
If your grandchildren run and hide in a closet when they see you get out of a car, you might be a Grumpy Old Man.
If you curse and ask for more ketchup for the meatloaf before tasting it and your wife hits you upside the head with a ketchup bottle, you might be a Grumpy Old Man. (This observation is stolen from someone. James Webb, perhaps?)
If the store clerk says “Have a nice day” and you ever respond with “What the hell’s so nice about it,” you might be a Grumpy Old Man. (If this is your customary response, then there is no doubt about it. You are a Grumpy Old Man).
If you visit your daughter and insist she turn up the heat until her entire family is wearing bathing suits and drinking iced tea, you might be a Grumpy Old Man.
If you think the “good old days” really were the good old days, you might be a Grumpy Old Man.
If you think all, or even most, young people are nincompoops and wastewads, you might be a Grumpy Old Man. (You’re also ungrateful; they’re paying your social security and Medicare and whatever other dough you’re snatching from the Feds).
If you wake in the middle of the night and your six-year-old grandson is staring into your eyes with a crazed look while holding a baseball bat over your head, you might be a Grumpy Old Man.
If your face hurts after you laugh for more than three seconds, you might be a Grumpy Old Man.
If your normal response to drivers beeping at you for traffic violations is to flip them the bird, you might be a Grumpy Old Man.
If on entering your favorite restaurant you see the servers playing “rock, paper, scissors,” and the loser comes to wait your table, you might be a Grumpy Old Man.
If your normal response to a greeting is to growl rather than to speak, you might be a Grumpy Old Man.
If birdsong at dawn, the beach at sunset, the scent of cut grass, the sweet perfume of a woman, the laughter of children, or any other such sensation annoys rather than pleases you, then trust me, partner, you are one Grumpy Old Geezer (GOG).
Then it hit me, one of those tiny revelations that on occasion strike in the shower or at a quiet moment over a cup of coffee. “Hey,” I thought suddenly, “you’re old and you’re not grumpy.”
That epiphany has since brought me a great deal of comfort.
Grumpy old men in the movies may make us laugh, but grumpy old men in real life can blacken the brightest day. I am referring to those grizzled crabs who look as if a smile might crack apart their faces, who when casually asked “How are you?” give an account of their health as if reading from a medical chart, who regard young people as sex-crazed, drug-addicted, brain-dead, and beyond redemption. These are the pickle-pusses with an addled view of time: to a grumpy old man, the golden age in which he grew up is forever blasted away, the present is a wasteland of decadence, and the future promises such desolate horrors that grumpy old men universally declare themselves happy that they will not live to see these coming catastrophes.
During my years of fearing that I might mutate into one of these creatures, I observed several variations of the Grumpy Old Man (GOM) whose rancor and surliness especially alarmed me. Most dreaded of all was the possibility of becoming a Grumpy Old Grandpa (GOG). The GOG values peace and quiet over the chaos created by children and grandchildren. Seeking this tranquility, some affluent GOGs of my acquaintance relocated after retirement into gated, childless communities in Florida or Arizona, silent, uncluttered neighborhoods devoid of tricycles and soccer balls. Here the rules governing guests and usage of the community’s facilities ensure few visits from families with children. In lieu of being tormented by toddlers sticky with jelly or brash teenagers with their music and opinions, the GOG who lives in these elder-havens finds himself free to bicker with his neighbors over such issues as trash pick-up and appropriate dress for the clubhouse.
Some GOGs go to even greater pains to keep family at a distance. Several years ago, one man bragged to me that the palatial house he’d built in the Smoky Mountains, a mini-mansion perched high above a valley, had only two bedrooms, a feature deliberately conceived to discourage visits from his children.
When forced to be in contact with their offspring, GOGs react by unleashing a running bitter commentary on the behavior and lifestyle of their children and grandchildren. “That car must have cost you a fortune.” “How much do you spend every month on those fancy wines?” “You have heard of birth control, right?” “We didn’t teach you to raise kids this way.” “That kid is headed for jail.” “You’re raising a wuss.” “When I was your age, I was up at five p.m. delivering papers in the snow.” “You throw like a girl.” And then the clincher: “I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be bringing up kids in today’s world.”
A second subset of the GOM that chilled my heart was the Grumpy Old Bastard (GOB). These are the snarling storm troopers who unleash their invective on helpless checkout clerks, who leave a skilled waiter a one-dollar tip on a thirty-dollar bill, who swallow their wine with no evidence of enjoyment but who take great pleasure in bringing pain and embarrassment to others.
Some GOBs hide behind their infirmities while assailing their victims. After all, they reason, who’s going to punch out a wobbly-legged old man wearing his trousers up to his chest? At the luncheon following my mother’s funeral many years ago, one of these GOBs, a distant relative renowned for his hurtful wisecracks, said to me, “I don’t know why everyone’s so sad. Sooner or later, everyone bites the dust. I saw lots of dead guys in Vietnam.” I was twenty-five years his junior, and despite my respect for veterans, it was all I could do to refrain from knocking him over his head with his own cane, but beating up a guy who has trouble walking and breathing seems unlikely to win the approbation of those around me.
Then there was the Grumpy Old Ephebiphobiac(GOE). Ephebiphobiacs are adults who hate or fear young people. These GOEs consider anyone under forty a mental midget living a life of debauchery. They hate young people for their mistakes, for their joi de vivre, and for the fact that they are young while they, the GOEs, are old. The young can also terrify them. Having watched some television news broadcast about a knockout attack on an eighty-year-old retiree, GOEs conclude that vast hordes of young punks are roaming the streets looking especially for old guys just like him.
Finally, I feared becoming a Grumpy Old Conservative (GOC). This fear was more real to me than the others because for a time in my life I had been a Grumpy Young Conservative (GYC). As a GYC in my thirties, I railed against the world, denounced the culture, and engaged in heated political debates with some of my relatives. Eventually—and I am not sure how—I decided I was playing a losing game. I didn’t like who I was becoming. Hubert Humphrey, the liberal Democrat who lost in the presidential race of 1968 to Richard Nixon, was described in the media as a “happy warrior,” and I took him for my model and became a conservative “happy warrior,” raising questions rather than launching attacks and using humor rather than bile for my artillery.
Doubtless you can find other subsets of the GOM. These categories were, as I say, the ones I most feared.
In those days of my apprehensions, I also considered causes for the creation of a GOM. Certainly failing physical powers and debilitating illnesses might play hell with the emotions and cause one to become crotchety. A man accustomed to building rock walls in his garden or driving around town in his convertible—young men driving convertibles are as rare a sight as a covey of nuns in habit—will suffer when life hands him a cane, a walker, impaired eyesight, a portable oxygen tank, or a revoked driver’s license. Though I myself, for reasons I cannot fathom, remain in relative good health, I can sympathize with those made contentious by disease or illness.
Television and the news media can also create the GOM. A man who worked all his life is unaccustomed to spending his days in front of a big screen, but now that he has slowed down, the idiot box sometimes becomes his closest companion. One eighty-year-old man I know watches Fox News six hours per day. Though I myself don’t own a television—I get my news online from written sources—I can understand this curmudgeon’s spleen. Were I to watch Fox News, or any news media, for six hours a day, the world would appear a broken, frightening place, leaving me with dark thoughts and a rotten attitude.
Most likely, however, the GOM becomes a Grumpy Old Men because he was a Grumpy Young Men (GYM). If, as the adage goes, we all wear the faces we deserve by age forty, then the same surely holds true for our personalities. The GOM is therefore likely the offspring of a GYM, that not-so-distant ancestor who peppered his wife and children with criticism, who brought a chill into the office on the coldest day, who looked at everyone he encountered with the gimlet eye of a carnival huckster battling a hangover. That grouchy old codger you see haranguing his beaten-down old wife was once upon a time a grouchy young codger haranguing his beaten-down young wife. I have long known a man, a staunch conservative, who has ridden a horse named Bitterness for his entire adult life. About to turn sixty, he remains a rude, brusque man whose rare laughter is as brittle as broken glass. He has no close friends and annoys his acquaintances. He is the quintessential example of a Grumpy Young Man who gave birth to a Grumpy Old Man.
In With Charity Toward None: A Fond Look at Misanthropy, Florence King celebrates the misanthrope and the grouch. I own this book and frequently read from it, for Miss King is a witty, talented writer who can make me laugh aloud. Renowned as a misanthrope, and perhaps a Grumpy Old Woman, she glorifies the crotchets, grouches, codgers, and people haters she has known and loved. Like the ones found in movies, Miss King’s grumps are amusing. Indeed, she makes grumpiness and misanthropy appear attractive.
But being a GOM is not for me. Even had I desired to become one, I just can’t see myself as a cantankerous curmudgeon. For whatever reason, I just don’t have a GOM inside me.
Now back to my coffee, my books, and this beautiful Saturday morning.
Addendum: Some Signs That You Might Be A Grumpy Old Man
If your grandchildren run and hide in a closet when they see you get out of a car, you might be a Grumpy Old Man.
If you curse and ask for more ketchup for the meatloaf before tasting it and your wife hits you upside the head with a ketchup bottle, you might be a Grumpy Old Man. (This observation is stolen from someone. James Webb, perhaps?)
If the store clerk says “Have a nice day” and you ever respond with “What the hell’s so nice about it,” you might be a Grumpy Old Man. (If this is your customary response, then there is no doubt about it. You are a Grumpy Old Man).
If you visit your daughter and insist she turn up the heat until her entire family is wearing bathing suits and drinking iced tea, you might be a Grumpy Old Man.
If you think the “good old days” really were the good old days, you might be a Grumpy Old Man.
If you think all, or even most, young people are nincompoops and wastewads, you might be a Grumpy Old Man. (You’re also ungrateful; they’re paying your social security and Medicare and whatever other dough you’re snatching from the Feds).
If you wake in the middle of the night and your six-year-old grandson is staring into your eyes with a crazed look while holding a baseball bat over your head, you might be a Grumpy Old Man.
If your face hurts after you laugh for more than three seconds, you might be a Grumpy Old Man.
If your normal response to drivers beeping at you for traffic violations is to flip them the bird, you might be a Grumpy Old Man.
If on entering your favorite restaurant you see the servers playing “rock, paper, scissors,” and the loser comes to wait your table, you might be a Grumpy Old Man.
If your normal response to a greeting is to growl rather than to speak, you might be a Grumpy Old Man.
If birdsong at dawn, the beach at sunset, the scent of cut grass, the sweet perfume of a woman, the laughter of children, or any other such sensation annoys rather than pleases you, then trust me, partner, you are one Grumpy Old Geezer (GOG).
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