Schmoozing wiith S'mores

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Camp Deer Run on Lake Winnipesaukee, NH was abuzz with friends meeting friends for the 50th Camp Reunion. People (I might add much younger appearing than I am), folks I didn’t even know, came up to me and congratulated me on being there. Um, in contrast to what, being dead? But their intent was good so I let my sarcastic self lay low. Eventually I figured out how so many people recognized me. I had been in a video shot five years prior. They knew me from the video. Okay, with that mystery solved I was a wee bit sad that people didn’t actually remember me by how I looked 50 years ago. You know the back slapping that goes along with, “you haven’t changed a bit” and other assorted fibs.

Of course I’ve changed. Not just because I know so much more, but because my various ill-fated life choices have taken their toll. And here’s a hot tip for you younger folks: Just because you get older does not mean you have gotten wiser. In fact, wisdom can escape your grasp your entire life. One thing that occurred to me way back as I was hitting forty is that difficult choices in life were most likely the lesser of a multitude of evils. Just because you escaped through one open door did not mean the next you needed door would appear. So heads up: If one door closes you may not get another open door. You may have to throttle the bejesus out of a window jam and squeeze through that puppy. You do what you have to do to survive. You hang in there and hope for better times.

That is how it is that I came to once again stand on the fair banks of Lake Winnipesaukee. This reunion weekend would be recorded as better times. Once a young innocent sprite of a girl, I was now, if not wise, surely wizened, weathered and , okay, I’ll admit it weird. But how did this transition work it’s evil upon me?

I have a small journal stored in my head as to when each significance wrinkle appeared.
Vertical wrinkle between my eyebrows appeared soon after I moved to New York City. Crow’s feet that would match Big Bird’s talons arrived by marriage number two. Serious vertical lip wrinkles (the bar code effect in one’s upper lip) occurred soon after divorce number two. Sagging arm flaps showed up last year. I am starring in my own version of “Journey to the Center of the Earth”. Just doing it one body part at a time.

But as with all reunions there is good news, no matter what we have suffered through ( I still had effects of Transverse Myelitis never mind all the bad choices I’d made) there is hope to clutch to. As I looked around the first night’s campfire, S’mores melting in the mouths of those not on a sugar, wheat, and dairy-free diet, I had a great thought. Everyone of my peers is not only aging at the approximate same rate that I am…but their eyesight is likely to be degenerating at the rate that their hearing is going. So every time I heard someone around the dancing flames say, “What?” I smiled because that meant their eyesight was now hazy. Hazy as in, get the gel filter for Lucille Ball in Auntie Mame. Get the airbrush out for Goldie Hawn. Yup, we are all seeing through a mirror dimly. That is good news at any reunion. The foggier your vision, the better the likelihood I look good to you. Or more to the point, the more you have to rely on memory rather than real time vision to see me. At last there it was, a Virtual-Way-Back Machine. The other plus is that with all the replaced hips, knees and heart valves, no one is going to out race, run or walk much faster than I could. Yup, as the fire faded to smoldering glowing coals we all just moseyed up the hill from the waterfront. In fact, I noticed in the new addition for the dining hall there was now for the first time an elevator. I may be using that at the 60th Camp Reunion.

Sally Franz is a former stand-up comedian, motivational speaker, and radio host. She is a twice-divorced mother of two and a grandmother of three. Sally has a degree in gerontology and several awards for humor writing. She is the author of Scrambled Leggs: A Snarky Tale of Hospital Hooey
and The Baby Boomers Guide to Menopause.