Turf & Rec | Duffer - Forever Young

I mean, Pete Townsend is over 50. What’s sad is most people don’t know who Pete Townsend is. Or was. But in his line of work, which is Rock Star, you got to explain who you are to anybody outside of Utah, then it’s was. Definitely was.

In fact, you have to explain who you are; your profession is no longer Rock Star. It’s Trivia Question. I work with a bunch of young people, and they know from Kid Rock and Smash Mouth and people like that, but you say Pete Townsend to them and they go, “Huh?”

And you say, “He was The Who.” But you say it tiredly, cause you know it’s going to turn out badly.

And then they say, “Who’s The Who?” And the next thing you know, you’re in a comedy routine from the Abbott and Costello era. And you say that and they say, “Who’s Abbott and Costello?” And then you either punch somebody in the month or just rock back and forth quietly, weeping.

Anyway, Pete Townsend’s the guy, wrote the Lyric: Hope I die before I get old. Just in case you’re younger then me and don’t know.

Like most of the rest of the world. Anyway, that lyric pretty much sums up the whole baby boomer attitude towards age, except – and this is kind of funny – none of us boomers are actually willing to die to make space for the people being born behind us.

Also, according to somebody who reads most of these columns, aside from age, I’m also fixated on, in no particular order, with:

a) The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders;

b) Innovative uses for corn-based cooking oils involving, not salad or cooking, but the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders;

c) Hooters (see cheerleaders, Dallas, Cowboy);

d) Firearms;

e) The size of my gut;

f) Right-wing, Western Canadian politics;

g) Nitrous oxide-propelled cans of whipped cream – see also Cheerleaders, Dallas, and Cowboys.

Not that this is relevant to the column, or anything else in particular, but I actually once knew a pair of chubby girls who lived together, and when they were settled in for an evening of television, they used to take out their respective cans of Reddi Whip and spray them directly into their mouths while watching reruns of Frasier and Friends, and when I was there visiting once (as a friend, not a potential cellulite suffer!), they wondered why they were alone on a Saturday night. Alone, as in without romantic companionship.

I used to assure them that I didn’t know why that was. I was, and I remain absolutely delighted by the notion that people can sit in front of the TV sucking aerosol whipped cream into bodies and wondering aloud why they aren’t getting any opposite sex action.

h) Death;

i) Why the Calgary Flames are the Rodney Dangerfields of the National Hockey League.

As far as I can tell, it’s got something to do with lousy coaching and the weak Canadian dollar, which doesn’t allow us to buy real hockey players.

But I disgress. Anyway it turns out, every time I’ve been whining about aging without grace or style in these pages, every time I’ve talked about my gut and my silver hairs and the slow, inexorable thumps behind me that are the footsteps of the Grim Reaper Himself, Death Incarnate come to seize me and take me, kicking and screaming, to see either Jesus or the Fallen Angel who lives some distance South of the postal code where Our Lord resides, it turns out… I was wrong.

Cause after last week, it turns out I might just live forever. Seriously. Cause AC/DC came to town, man. And if you haven’t seen AC/DC in a while, let me tell you. They’re the best argument in favour of adolescent immortality ever.

I work with one of those entrepreneur type kids who are about 22, and he’s either going to be the next Donald Trump or the next face you see on America’s Most Wanted. His name is – well never mind what his name is, given that there are probably warrants out on him.

To supplement his income at out shop, he gets up early whenever tickets for anything go on sale here in Calgary, and he buys the maximum and then scalps them out to whoever is willing to pay the freight. Face value to people he likes, like me. Double face to people he doesn’t know.

The kid comes to work with a handful of AC/DC tickets and flashes them out in a fan and says, “So, you wanna go?”

Jeez. Do I wanna go? Do I wanna go? Do I wanna be 16 again? Do I wanna travel the Highway to Hell? Do I wanna do Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap? Do I wanna be one of Those About to Rock? Do I wanna hang with easy girls with tattoos of dolphins on their ankles and roses on their you know, and T-shirts cut off to show their six pack abs and the bottom curved of their…

Do I? Nah. I want to sit around listening to Lawrence Welk and waiting for Death to visit.

Of course I want to go. I want to go the way I want my heart to continue to beat. I wanna go the way I want Mr. Haooy to stand up and be counted when the woman I love looks at me that way. So I fork over the cash, and fold the ticket into my wallet – just one ticket, cause I married a woman who is into the Broadway musical, not the rock and roll – and I go home. And I fish around in the bottom drawer of my bureau drawer and I put on the T-shirt I bought the last time I went to an AC/DC concert and I put it on and I about burst into tears, because this is not my T-shirt. This is a T-shirt belonging to somebody 40 pounds lighter and eons younger and… and I got three months.

So the Atkins Diet. All beer, fish and chicken, no potatoes. So Billy blanks and Tae Bo. All movement. No rest. Two hundred and fifty six abs crunches. Everyday. And 12 weeks later, the concert rolls around and the 37-inch waist is a 33-inch waist. And the old T-shirt fits, man. And Angus Young, Older than me, leaner than me, rolls into the stage and I’m on my feet, slim and trim and by God gonna live forever, screaming myself hoarse.

And I don’t sit for the whole concert. Spent the whole two hours on my feet, bopping up and down, throwing my fist in the air and a young woman who I had never met grinned at me six rows away and pulled her shirt up and showed me her breast. Fireworks, fun and ferocity. And the next day I make it to work, hobbling, but straightening up, hiding the pain, when anybody looked at me.

Cause I’m not old, damnit, not yet. And the only regret I have is I didn’t know the girl’s name because I’d like to send her a thank you note.

Pete Townsend sang Hope I Die Before I get Old. I’m thinking maybe it’s time for a new baby boomer anthem. A little Buddy Holly, maybe: Not fade away. Now there’s a lyric. Or a little something from Rod Stewart, the original song containing the phrase: Forever Young

Courtesy of Turf & Recreation Magazine
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