It is a warm and windy Sunday. I always think of Bloody Marys’ on Sunday although the drink is a once in awhile pleasure. The ambiance of dinner with friends and family with some tasty Bloody Marys is a picturesque pleasure.

There is a reason that social situations are based on eating and drinking as they are two of our most relaxing activities. MJ and I had a lovely dinner with our friends Jim and Joan and our talk of the vagaries of age and the affront of its attack on us. I ruminated that when I began to feel the attack of the Golden Years I speculated that perhaps I was the first that had felt and noticed the insidious manner that the first salvo from the front lines of time had swirled over my head as the shrapnel hit me. Joan assured me that we all go through the piling up of birthdays and what they bring with them as we become senior citizens.

We Old Folks speak a language that only we understand…we know it when we see it and feel it. We wink and grin when we hear our youngers speak of their getting old and the maladies that ensue.

There comes a certain settledness with age. Accepting that it is time to make your own decisions without a boss or a commandment giver that we feel compelled to obey. In my youth, I endeavored to comply with silly rules and edicts that seemed harmless in themselves and have decided long ago to listen to the timpani of my own drummer.

Violated is how I feel when a politician or a preacher wants to tell me what my behavior should be according to their vision of my purpose as I see it.

Curmudgeon is not a dirty word when used as a seeker of their own walk in life. Indeed it is an honest outlook on the challenges that you have faced and your ongoing walk back to Jerusalem.

We, old curmudgeons and drummer followers, have much sympathy and empathy for those who are hurting and have been marginalized and forgotten and for those who have no voice. We remember how it felt to be the odd man or woman out. The one who is overlooked while others are sought out for their advice.

Truthful speech is as hard to find as hen’s teeth or perhaps the Gold of Ophir. If we inculcated the valuable lesson of speaking truth to power…we would not be in the precarious position that we find ourselves…