PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH GROUP SPEECH

LIFE IN SIX WORDs
There’s a book out called “Not What I was Planning’ which has numerous people summing up their lives in six word statements. Joan Rivers quipped “Liars, hysterectomy didn’t improve sex life.” Humorist Ray Blount Jr. wrote “Maybe you had to be there.”

Novelist Joyce Carol Oates wrote “Revenge is living well, without you.” I can smell a bitter divorce here. Kelsey Ochs said “Follwed yellow brick road, disappointment ensued.”

“I wrote it down somewhere.” someone wrote. “Never finished anything, except cake.” “I colored outside the lines” and columnist Craig Wilson wrote “Dad was Santa. Down hill from there.

Maybe you could come up with your own summation, if you think you’re old enough. I got to thinking and here’s one reason, out of many, as to how I’ve finally summed up my life.

When I was stationed in the Air Force in England in 1969 I took some leave to see Europe. In Paris I bought a leather pouch where I put some foreign coins in, like French franks and Italian lira, as souvenirs.
I had it hidden in my barracks for two years till I packed it in my duffle bag to take home upon my discharge. Back in the USA I moved several times taking that pouch with me each time.

I brought the souvenir pouch into my office and put it on my desk for 33 years, looking at the coins once in a while to remind me of my travels. Then one night someone broke into our office thru a window the size of a small suitcase. A SMALL SUITCASE! And robbed us. My own office was ransacked and my Paris pouch was stolen.

Several months later the cops caught the thief, but he didn’t have the pouch full of my foreign coins with him. They were gone forever. Then last week I was watching the news and they mentioned the Euro, the standard currency that replaced all of Europe’s different bills and coins.

So even if I made it back to Europe one more time, I couldn’t replace my old souvenir francs and lira, if I wanted to. Which leads to the 6 word summation of my life which is “Hell, I never saw that coming!”
Anyone come up with a six word summation of their life? Anyone?
Before we continue here’s a couple of notes for your church bulletin.

THE SHADOW KNOWS but Cliff McLaughlin and his crew didn’t have a clue when they were painting the fellowship room and ended up repainting the shadows that skipped across the walls during the day.

For those of you who don’t know- the Reedsville Fishing Club is really just an old baseball bat that hits the fish onto the bank when they jump out of the water after they electrify Kish Creek
(And who do you have to thrill to get into the fishing club? Apparently Gene Glick, ‘cause if he doesn’t like you you’re a rod without a reel. Just ask him, he’ll tell you how he feels- always. Gene’s kinda like the Judge Judy of Reedsville.)

After you’re so old you can get the senior citizen discount on almost anything, including life itself. Some things are good about getting old, while others are not so great.
This covers both sides. The positive stuff about getting old is provided by the ubiquitous unknown comedy writer on the WEB. The more negative points of growing old are provided by yours truly. First are the perks on getting old.

Kidnappers are not very interested in you.
In a hostage situation you are likely to be released first, mainly because it’s way past your bedtime.
People no longer view you as a hypochondriac.
There’s nothing left to learn the hard way.
You can live without sex, but not without your glasses.
You enjoy hearing about other peoples’ operations.
Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to pay off.
Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can’t remember them either.
That’s pretty much the end of the good stuff, so here’s some of the bad stuff with those senior citizen discounts on life.
You get more musical with age as rock and roll is how fitfully you sleep at night in between numerous trips to the bathroom, rap is what you do with presents and hip hop is what you do when you fall in front of people in public, then pretend you didn’t.
Cher is your Britney Spears.
When your wife winks at you and you think she wants to mess around, it’s probably astigmatism because she can’t see you properly and has to squint.
You nap before, after and during sex.
You run in place and get winded just trying to jog your memory.
You’re so old that you can remember when Walt Disney was a person and not a land or a world.
Happy hour and Miller time have long since replaced your youthful Howdy Doody time, which never gave you a hangover. And you feel more like Clarabell the Clown than Buffalo Bob.
You went from being a walker to using one.
The Pepsi Challenge once landed you in the hospital because you broke something taking it.
You’re disappointed if your biggest lottery winner is $1,000 a week for life. So maybe all you’ll win is a couple thousand bucks.
Sugar is something you’re diagnosed with and not supposed to have anymore.
No one expects you to finish a race now, let alone win it. In fact, expectations are so low for you that if you did actually accomplish something significant at your age, there’d be a full investigation by the proper authorities.
The only cutting up you’ll be involved in will be your nurse cutting up your food for you.
You keep seeing the medicines you take regularly showing up on the news as dangerous to your health and TV ads from lawyers saying that if your pills kill you your family can file lawsuits and seek damages against them by just calling this number.
You can now use your senior citizen discount for Depends, but not for Brylcreem because your hair went the way of your continence.
Life is full of moments that take your breath away, but at your age it could mean a blockage somewhere.
You now have trouble keeping your self winding watch going.
You’re so old that one stop shopping means a cemetery next to a nursing home.
You may not live long enough to pay off a new car, which is why you buy one.
The half moons on your fingernails have almost set.
You live for yesterday, because today sucks.
And finally you don’t have to be nice to people you don’t like anymore. What are they gonna do, snub you at the cemetery?

In case you don’t realize that you’re getting old, you’re in denial, here are some HINTS YOU’RE GETTING OLD
.YOU KNOW YOU’RE GETTING OLD
when the only thing that keeps you relevant to top 40 radio is that every few years they release another Elvis and Beatles’ song.
when you want to buy a condo in TV Land and live there, like you’re ten again when I Love Lucy was new.
when you worry more about your bowels than your bad breath.
when the last time you had a date the Vietnam War was going well.
when you download with a cocktail, not a computer, after work.
when you’re too cranky to try to be charming to a good looking member of the opposite sex.
when there’s nothing new under the sun, except for the skin cancer just diagnosed by your dermatologist.
when the only thing that doesn’t give you heartburn is breathing .
when the last time you had a handle on life was when you grabbed the handle on your pharmacy’s plastic bag full of your prescriptions for the next 90 days.
when you start thinking that the speed limit is a tad too fast and everybody beeps “Hi.” and shakes their fists “Hello.” as they speed around you on the highway.
when the next time you move it’s either to the nursing home or the cemetery.
when they don’t want you as an organ donor anymore because the warranty on your body parts has expired.
when you should wear a helmet whenever you go out for a walk.
when the food fad popcorn chicken causes your brain to lock up. Is it popcorn or is it chicken? Make up your #!@&* mind!
when it takes a team of specialists and a string of pharmaceutical companies just to get you to lunch.
when the varicose veins lining your legs is the most attractive part of your body.

Running rampant with my old age theme for today, here’s some AARP bumper stickers.
I’m retired. I was tired yesterday and I’m tired again today.
When I was younger, all I wanted was a nice BMW. Now I don’t care about the W.
CREMATION? Think outside the box.
We got married for better or worse. He couldn’t do better. I couldn’t do any worse.
Florida.? God’s waiting room.
Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
I ask my wife if old men wear boxers or briefs? She said DEPENDS.
Food has replaced sex in my life…Now I can’t even get into my own pants.
Snap, crackle pop in the morning ain’t my freakin’ Rice Krispies.
Senior Campbells… New Large Type Alphabet Soup.

I’d like to end with two philosophical poems from my book BALD AIN’T BEAUTIFUL.

THE MAYTAG PHILOSOPHER
Life is like
The spin cycles
Of a washer.
You begin when
You’re born
And Delicate.
You rinse off
And grow up
To be Regular,
Like everyone else.
You meet someone
Who makes you Hot,
And marry them.
But you soon
Cool Down
And rinse again.
Then are agitated
Till you take
That Final Spin
And become Permanent Press.


THE MISFORTUNE COOKIE OF LIFE
From the day you’re born
Till the day you die,
It’s all just one long goodbye.
So the meaning of life is this-
To love and be loved while you’re here,
Then be missed when you disappear.