Morning walks

My morning walks take about 80 minutes to complete. I usually see at least some birds - no idea what they're called, but they're white with long necks and legs, and they're cautious but not really timid. I have occasionally seen deer.

When the levee makes a sharp, right 90º turn, it's high above the low ground on the left. You actually look down on the houses, behind their fences. Below are trees, fairly old trees, that stand tall. One of these has branches hanging within reach of the trail. In fact, you kind of have to stay to the opposite side on the trail, or else duck your head a little. There are grape vines hanging in the branches there. I saw some clusters of little unripe grapes, and next to each tree there is one grape vine growing up the trunk and mingling with the branches and leaves. Since that's too much coincidence for even an optimist like me to assume, the HOA or the developers or some really thoughtful resident must have planted one vine by each tree a long time ago - kind of like when I planted two oak trees in my front yard last year in Midland. Only the grape vines are still there, unlike the oak trees, which are gone because some attractive, stone-hearted California girl ripped them out to make it easier to mow (but I'm not bitter).

Some day soon those grapes will ripen, and the little animals in the area will enjoy them. Maybe somebody on the trail will eat them, who knows? Maybe I'll be the one. And I started thinking this morning: who else will even notice the grapes? Just other walkers like me? I doubt that the runners, the joggers will even see them. They're going too fast, thinking about their young, active things. Only the walkers, in our old man shorts, and our old man socks, and our old man t-shirts will see them, because we're the ones limping along with our old man DNA unraveling.

That's how you age, you know. Your DNA keeps replicating itself, following its instruction set, and there are tiny errors that creep in as it does. I don't really understand the process (as if you did, either), but they describe it as being similar to the little plastic ends on your shoelaces. They keep the DNA from unraveling. But they start to wear out, and the new cells have the DNA strands a little more weak and damaged, and so you get old and inflexible, until eventually you die (but I'm not bitter) like the useless refuse you were always meant to be (no, no no - I'm not bitter, honest).

OK, strike that. I'm useful refuse. Yeah, that's better.

Meanwhile, hurricane Ike is on his way, and nobody is sure where he'll step ashore without wiping his feet. It looks like he'll hit Rockport, then move up to San Antonio, and then go rain on Wichita Falls, my old hometown. We have to have a little fun.

What is old, anyway?

OK, I'm officially old.

I watched Jay Leno just now, mostly because my hero Ron Paul was appearing. It was a good interview, and can't hurt him, but he was immediately followed by musical guests the Sex Pistols.

Now, the Sex Pistols are sort of nostalgic. They began their sporadic and notorious career in 1975, and I thought they had disappeared for good. But here they were on Leno, singing what sounded like "Anarchy in the UK," a song whose lyrics - were they lyrics? - were unintelligible to these old ears. They gestured in a friendly way to Dr. Paul and I heard the words "Hi, Mr. Paul" emerging from the cacophony of sound filling the studio audience. I think it was a show of support, but I'm not sure.

Now, I'm not in favor of anarchy by any means. I am for less government, and so I suppose given the huge beast that government has become these days, an anarchist would favor the candidate who wants to govern the least.

But who do the Sex Pistols influence today? Do the young folk look up to a three-decades old band whose trademark is revolt against the music popular in 1975? If so, why? Do the current 40-year-olds remember them fondly? And here I am, fondly remembering tearing off the plastic shrink wrap from my new copy of the White Album.

So here I am, supporting a 72 year old man for president because he stays loyal to a 220 year old document that everyone else ignores, and watching him share a stage with an aging, arthritic punk rock band who also seems to like him, and feeling glad that my 86 year old father who fought the Japanese in WWII never stays up late enough to have seen anything like the Sex Pistols singing about anarchy.

Well, shoot - I'm going to send another $17.76 to Ron Paul on November 5 just to add to the money bomb scheduled for that day. That ought to make me feel younger.