As Time Goes By

The watch I got for my 35th birthday just celebrated its 25th year on my wrist. The watch, which is silver and shiny and gold, has been a lot of places in its life and times. The watch kept track of interviews with everyone from Jimmy Stewart to Muhammad Ali. The watch was on the field at the Super Bowl, in the pits at the Indy 500. The watch went to war in Northern Ireland, and kept ticking in the grotto at the Playboy Mansion. It has led a good life, the watch. And, considering where it’s been, it’s none the worse for wear.

I, on the other hand, seem to be coming apart at the seams. It’s like the warranty on my body ran out in its 59th year. In the 12 months passed, I have been opened and closed, prodded and probed, and know my pharmacy number better than my own. The gravity of my current plight hit me one night last month when I realized that a two-minute commercial break was no longer enough time for me to pop all my pills. I now need to wait for a station identification or risk missing a few key scenes from CSI: Sandusky.

Until now, I have always prided myself for being in shape. I could nail a 14-foot jump shot in the driveway with regularity. I could hit a Whiffle ball onto my neighbor’s roof with precision. I used to be the thinnest and fastest father on the block.

Weight has never been a big issue with me. It’s just that I was never very good at math or science. So I never could figure out why my weight stayed the same, but my waistline kept getting bigger. It concerned me for a long time. And then I found the perfect scientific solution. I bought bigger pants.

Then I started starving myself. No more peanut butter and jelly on raisin bagels for lunch. No more black and white cookies and bottles of Yoo-hoo before bed. The result? Dramatic weight loss? A whole new me? No, I just got to wear the bigger pants longer.

And then, one day, it all hit me. I had just stepped out of the shower and saw my profile in the mirror. Let me tell you something. Sixty is not the new 40. No, I’ve already been 40. I have the pants to prove it.

It was all very depressing. So, I did what I often do when I’m depressed. I went to North Jersey. No fountain of youth there. It’s where my grandsons live. I arrived battered and bloodied. In the seven steps from the driveway to the front door, I had tried to leap a tall step in a single bound and taken a nasty fall. I walked in the house sullen and shaken. While some went for ice and others reached for the phone, Jack Levy, age two years, ten months, came running over to me at full speed with something in his hand.

“Gampa,” he said, still negotiating his R’s, “this will make you feel better.” And so, I have lived another day and am now the proud wearer of a Hot Wheels bandage on my sore knee and a Dora the Explorer bandage on my scraped ankle. As I write this, three days later, I still haven’t taken them off. It’s not that I still need them. It’s just that it’s hard to take life too seriously while wearing a pink and orange picture of Dora the Explorer. The weekend turned out to be one of the best ever. And now, when I look at my watch, I realize something very important. No matter my age, whatever my infirmity, time, like sands through the hourglass, is on my side.