I have transformed the title of an early Bruce album called THE WILD, THE INNOCENT, AND THE E STREET SHUFFLE into the title of this Portland/Bruce post. Indeed, age and health and general creakiness became my inadvertent personal themes of our less-than-ideal recent getaway. All I wanted to do was go to a concert. That was it. It was a completely innocent endeavor. But all along the way, I was found out for who I apparently am—at least corporeally. My mortal husk is not the husk it used to be.
It began when I dragged my carry-on bag to my seat on the plane in SLC. I bent down to lift the bag up and into the overhead baggage cabinet, when—for the first time in my traveling life ever—a young (?) man (probably in his early 40’s) asked if I would like some help hefting the relatively small piece of luggage up into its proper spot. I was taken aback. But I said, “Yes, thanks. I guess I should start to use my ‘old lady’ ticket’ whenever possible.” I was joking—or was I? The very same thing happened to me on our return flight.
When we boarded the train after the Bruce concert, the sign in this photo adorned the train car we were in. I wasn’t standing in the train more than five seconds when a woman I swear was my age offered me her seat. How old am I? A few minutes later, she offered it to me again. How infirm am I? A couple of train stops later, a woman sitting closer to where I was standing asked if I needed to sit down. This was getting weird. What the heck did I look like—Grandma Moses? Methuselah? The Crypt Keeper?
Much later, back in Utah, I asked Suzanne, “Just how old and/or infirm do I look?” Of course, I did test positive for COVID-19 a mere few hours after we got home safely. I suppose I maybe just looked ill the whole trip. I felt like crud most of the time, and I felt worse when we got home—which is why I took a COVID-19 test in the first place. The test was positive, positive, positive. Aaaaarrrrgggghhhhh! But once I remembered COVID was nothing more than a complete hoax and conspiracy, I felt 100 % chipper immediately. So I simply look ancient, I guess.🤣 Stay tuned for one more Portland post, in which I was also old—but still hip.