Time Keeps On Slippin'

You may remember that a couple of years ago I was knee deep in class reunion stuff.

Yes, the Wheeler High School Class of 1977 had their fortieth reunion in 2017 and I helped out and gave a little humor speech, that was mainly about "rolling".

If you don't know what "rolling" is, it is when a bunch of kids get together and throw toilet paper in the trees of a friend's house. Now, some people call this "vandalism" because you are on someone's property, uninvited and throwing toilet paper into trees.  You just can't win with some people.

Back in the mid-'70s, we called this "innocent fun".

Everybody rolled houses. I mean everybody. The Baptist kids, the stoner kids, the nerd kids, the jock kids, and the band kids.

My wife even rolled houses.

One time, my wife was telling me one of her rolling stories. It was about how she and a couple of her friends went out at 2:30 in the morning and rolled this guy's yard.

I listened and said, "Your mother. Let you. Go rolling. At 2:30 in the morning?" My wife's mother was a saint and would not approve of this use of toilet paper at this time in the morning.  Especially for a boy's house.  The boy would learn that it was some girls had rolled his yard and soon he would wonder if they were naked while they rolled the yard.  To be fair, she wasn't wrong, because back in the '70s the only thing boys thought about was naked girls doing things naked (opening a locker, getting the mail, taking an algebra test, etc). By the way, "Doing Things Naked" would be a great name for a band.

My wife looked at me and said in a sexy whisper, "My mother never knew about it."

Rowr!  I responded by requesting her to bring her bad girl self over to me.

I don't hear about rolling anymore.  Maybe it's because of all of the perpetually knotted panty people got their way and it is taboo to throw toilet paper into a friend's tree. I don't know. It might have more to do that if a bunch of kids did go rolling today, all of them would have to post an Instagram story about it as soon as it happened.

What got me into thinking about my reunion, which was very successful I might add, is that it dawned on me that I will turn 60 years old this year.

Five years until I am eligible for Medicare.

I was the last kid born in my immediate family. I was the last kid born on my mother's side of the family.  I was the third to the last kid born on father's side.  I was always the youngest. However, now I am not.

I don't feel 60 years old except for my back, which sometimes feels like 120 years old. My hair is sprinkled with gray, but still, I have all of it. Like the saying goes, I'd rather it turn gray than turn loose.

I try to keep up with pop culture as much as I can.  I know Drake is famous. I'm not sure what for, but he is famous.

To be honest, pop culture is sort of boring to me.  Everybody is "woke" and there are certain things you can say, like the F word except in church and broadcast TV. At least right now.

But, there are a thousand words you can't say and if you do, woe be unto thee.  The Twitter mob will come after to you and convict you without a trial or jury.

Back when I was in high school, there was no GOOGLE.  We had the encyclopedia.  Today, it can take seconds to find information on a topic.  Back then, it took weeks, sometimes months to research a project.

The picture below illustrates this:

This is a picture of some of Wheeler's finest if you have an elastic definition of "finest". (I am the striking young man wearing glasses and the hairstyle called "Combed Once A Week".)

You will notice that we are in the library (or "lie-berry" as the Vice Principal pronounced it) "working" (again: elastic definition) on a research project.  Only one book is open and only one person has a pen.

My point is back then you had to work to obtain information. Now it is at your fingertips.  I told my wife that if we had PCs, tablets, and smartphones back then, I'd probably have at least two PhDs by now. But, there wasn't and now I'm entering "the golden years" with zero PhDs.

I was one of the lucky ones. The Vietnam War ended when I was in 8th grade and they ended the Draft.

Our music was great. Much better than whatever is out now.  Back then, country music was country music written by and for people who wore their names on their work clothes.

Okay, we had disco. Sorry.

One more thing and this is going to show my age: GET OFF OF MY LAWN. Unless you have toilet paper. That stuff is not cheap.