For Now, He’s Gonna Take It Easy . . . One Birthday at a Time

I celebrated another birthday on a recent Sunday. I say I celebrated it. I simply had it. My family celebrated it.

I had invited them over for a swimming party, it being insufferably hot. They came en masse. They had to be fed. My wife drove down to the market and came back with chicken, Italian sausage, soft drinks and beer.

My grandson Casey, 16, cooked the meat on our barbecue. Someone had brought a gooey cake. A few brought presents, though they know there’s nothing I need, except love and compassion.

Speaking of compassion, my wife let me have two vodka tonics, instead of my usual one; I also had three glasses of wine and a bottle of beer. All of which put me in a celebratory mood.

I got one card from my oldest son, Curt, his wife, Gail, and their three children, Alison, Casey and Trevor. (Alison was absent, having gone off to Cornell University, in Ithaca, N.Y.) It was a fold-over card, with a message on the front and a zinger on the third page.

“We can tell each other our most sincere, profound thoughts. Why?

“We’re family!

“We can get together after a long time apart and still have a good time! Why?

“We’re family!

“We can make fun of you on your birthday and abuse you and knock you. Why?

And finally, on the last page, the abuse:

“You’re old!”

Though I was perfectly aware of my advanced years, it was rather a downer to have that fact pointed out by my loved ones.

I had never thought of myself as old. I was the perennial juvenile. I thought of myself as Maurice Chevalier, in “Gigi,” when he asks Hermione Gingold, “Am I growing old?” and she says, ‘Oh, no, not you.’ ”

I had worn my swimming trunks, but did not go in the pool. That was for the kids. My other granddaughter, Adriana, was there, an elegantly tall young woman, and her older brother Chris, muscled and self-confident after two years in the Army.

Their parents, my younger son Doug and my daughter-in-law, Jackie, were present and helped put away the wine. Also present were my wife’s niece and nephew, Jean and Mike O’Neill, from Bakersfield. (Mike and Jean had recently vacationed in France with Doug and Jackie.)

Casey did not swim. He said he was too sore from the first week of football practice at Brentwood. His younger brother, Trevor, swam like a seal.

Doug did not swim. He said he had never liked swimming. I was shocked. We had taken him and Curt to Brookside Park for swimming lessons when they were small boys. Both had learned to swim, and Curt had won a lifeguard certificate. I thought they had loved it.

“I was always cold,” Doug said. “I never liked it. I never swim in our pool at home.”

I realized, sadly, that you never know whether you’re pleasing your children or not. I had to console myself with the thought that at least we had taught the boys how to swim, an absolute necessity for kids in Southern California, where there are so many pools.

The only non-family guests were Kathy Doubleday, my physical therapist, and her fiance, Ron Hess, an engineering student at UCLA. Kathy is a neighbor and takes me swimming in the pool one or two days a week. One of the disadvantages of being old is that I can’t get into the pool by myself, having had a disabling stroke a year or so ago. I know the word is politically incorrect, but I’m handicapped. I think we should call things by their names.

I have a card that permits me to use disabled parking. I’m told that parking in a disabled space without a card can get you a $1,000 fine. My wife doesn’t like to leave me alone in the car when she gets out to go shopping because I am not a driver and have no right to use the card. I point out that I am handicapped and I am in the car. I don’t believe any officer would give me a ticket.

I suppose that’s the sort of thing husbands and wives argue about when they get old. My wife, however, is not old. I don’t know how she managed to escape old age when I was drifting into it so helplessly. She just doesn’t seem to have the genes for it.

She’s forever young.

Being old, I suppose I ought to review my lifestyle and find a better way to deal with it. I think I will stick with a life plan that I decided on several years ago and reaffirmed recently.

I think I’ll just try to stay alive and see what happens next.

* Jack Smith’s column is published Mondays.