Published: October 29, 2009 09:43 pm      

It’s hard to explain, but you’ll figure it out

One of our long-time staff members at the newspaper retired recently, and his department had a surprise going-away party for him.

For some of us, particularly him, it was an emotional time.

Steve Stouffer was one of our advertising directors, and he’d been at the newspaper a few months longer than I have.

He doesn’t live too far from here, and he promised that we’re not rid of him completely. When he’s in town, he said, he will come to visit us. That’s because he thinks of us as not just friends ... we’re more like family.

After the party, one of our younger folks told me that, “I hope it doesn’t get like that when you other old guys retire.”

Nice, I said to myself. Real nice.

A few days before, a reporter who’s half my age or less turned in a story in which someone described Fred Sloan, who is 64, as the “elder statesman” of the Board of Education.

Now I’m hearing that I’m one of the “old guys.”

If I make it that far, I’ll be 62 on my next birthday. There are times when I feel like I’m 100, but there are other times when I still feel like I’m 20 ... although I have better sense than to act that way.

My father and I were discussing women when I told him that in some ways it was a lot easier to be 50 than it was to be 20 or 30.

“Wait until you get to be 80,” he said, “and see how easy it is!”

Some time ago, we ran a story about a 72-year-old man who had been in a traffic accident, and it referred to him as “elderly.”

Dad called me the next day to complain.

“Dammit,” he said, “I’m 72, and I’m sure as hell not elderly!” He wasn’t, either.

A couple of days after hearing that I was one of the “old guys,” I decided to tease my younger friend about it.

She exercised the same option Congressmen enjoy, to revise and extend their remarks for the record.

“I didn’t say ‘old guys,’ ” she protested. “I said ‘old-timers’.”

I decided to let that one slide.

She explained that demonstrations of sentimentality bother her.

“I hate it when other people cry,” she said.

That was too much. I might pass up one hanging curveball, but not a second.

I pouted out my lower lip, set my chin to quivering, furrowed my brow, squinted and said, “Oh, honey, I hate to hear that. You just don’t know how that tears me up,” in as pitiful a voice as I could manage ... which is considerable.

“Goldy,” she said, her soft blue eyes suddenly blazing, “I’m gonna kick your ... !”

Sentimentality is like wisdom in that it cannot be explained to someone who hasn’t accumulated enough of life’s experiences to develop it, and age is not always a factor.

The fact that my young friend is unnerved by displays of sentimentality in other people tells me that although she may not realize it, she’s begun to develop it herself.

Other people’s tears bother us only when we are capable of shedding our own.

Steve and I have been together for more than 40 years. We’ve had shared a lot of laughs, we’ve worked hard together on more things than I can count, and we’ve developed a mutual sentimentality and respect that embrace each other and many of the people we’ve worked with.

We’ve had some dandy arguments, but they were strictly about business, while the other, truly more important things, were strictly personal.

After Steve and I got the disagreement out of our systems, we usually wound up talking about hunting, our families, sports or something else, or telling each other a hilariously unprintable story.

I don’t know that it becomes easier to shed tears, but as you get older and more sentimental, the reluctance to do so lessens. And the arguments you have — particularly with those who are also older and more sentimental — don’t last nearly as long as they once did.

Steve is a model train buff, and when I told him that I’d found my grandfather’s long-lost electric trains hidden away in a cardboard box in the rafters of my dad’s garage, he said he’d like to see them.

I told him they were filthy and grimy beyond belief. He said that didn’t matter. He wanted to see them them anyway.

When I brought the trains in, he looked at them and said, “Let me take them home. I’ll clean them up and restore them for you.”

Wherever he and I go, regardless of what he and I do, and for the rest of our days, Steve and I will both have a brother from another mother.

——————

I remembered what my young friend with the pretty blue eyes said, and was reminded of the effect that other people’s tears have on me, when I went to two funerals this past week.

One was for a 31-year-old woman and her 11-year-old son. The other was for a man who had just turned 38.

They were much loved by people who don’t know each other, but who in their own way are as dear to me as anyone can be who is not a member of my own family.

At such times, we tend to ask, “Why?” The only answer is that there is no answer.

As the minister who officiated at one of the services said, people often tend to blame God for things He didn’t do, but don’t give him nearly enough credit for what He does.

A couple of friends and I agreed afterward that for as much as we should thank God for the good things He has given us, we also should thank Him for what He may have spared us from — and these are things we probably will never know about.

We also told each other it was He who brought us together as friends in the first place ... so that we could be there for each other not just during the good times, but on those other days when it is important just to know that someone who cares is at your side.

It’s not just sentimentality. No, it’s far more than that.