More I hurry, slower I go.
Worry more, more troubles plague.
I am hoping some of you know.
How to change gears at my age.

How old am I?  Let me see.
Must be a calendar goes that far back.
Were the Middle Ages B.C. or A.D.?
Not like I have been keeping track.

Ford had brought out the Model T;
Born after talkies and rouged knees.
Respectable women didn’t say pee.
Had radio and the grapevine, but no tv.

Telephones were huge, clunky affairs
With noisy dials took forever t’go ‘round.
Good a lot of kids were blissfully unaware
Of a lot of the ___that was going down.

May have seen the f-word on a schoolyard shed
Adults that were heard to say gosh, golly, or gee.
H-e-double-toothpicks,  some of us kid wits said.
Sex ed was a stork or the birds and the bees.

Sounds like I’m yearning for “the good old days,”
I am not.  Capital T Trouble has never been news.
Beat, no bread, run out-on -- who can count the ways? 
It was ‘Wasn’-for-bad-luck’ gave birth to the blues.

Then, as now,  folk were bent over and not let up
by Fat Cats.  Lackies and backstabbers who feed.
We’ve got the ‘net, hip replacement and the sippy cup.
Lucky don't choke on a dog ‘r zag when ya shoulda zeed.

I began by insinuating that ‘getting’ old caused
my worry-wart obsessing and stripping Reverse.
It’s a lie.  Just me bein’ me.  Ain’ no law
against it, is there?   Some chickensh--, uh, curse?

Reckon like most, I’ll muddle through, best I can.
Not like we have a lot of choice, is there.
Probably like me, with Popeye: I-yam-what-I-yam.
Alive!!  Er, an’ this gear goes where?? 

                     (c)  Phyllis Jean Green

                              October, 2011

                                   [already]                                         


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