A ‘May-December Romance’ — from Different Centuries

'A MATTER OF LAUGH OR DEATH' -- Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

It’s been a few weeks since the Super Bowl game back on February 9th, but people are still talking about that amazing event. No, I don’t mean the football game itself, or the festive partying that took place on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, or the halftime show where I honestly could not understand a single word Mr. Lamar said, or the zillion dollars worth of new television commercials that premiered (none of which I can remember at the moment, making me wonder how those companies justify spending so much money each year).

The amazing event I refer to, of course, was coach Bill Belichick showing off his 24-year-old, barely dressed girlfriend.

Yes, that Bill Belichick. Not either of his sons, Brian or Stephen, who also coach football. I mean Bill, the guy who won six Super Bowl titles as head coach of the New England Patriots and who will turn 73 years old in April.

At this point in my life, I am sincerely trying very hard to be less judgmental (yeah, I know you can’t tell from my weekly columns), and to adopt a “live and let live” attitude. When I first heard that the famous coach, born when Harry Truman was president, was dating a woman born during the current century, my instinctive reaction was, “Eww!”

Immediately, I thought to myself, Don’t be like that. It’s none of your business. You should be happy for them. So then, my second more mature reaction was, “Gross!”

There is one thing Coach Bill and his girlfriend (who can’t rent a car without paying a Young Renter fee) will never experience. It is one of the most delightful aspects of being in a loving relationship: growing old together.

There are many positive features about being a senior citizen (none of which I can remember at the moment, yet again, proving that forgetting to remember things is a key negative aspect about being a senior citizen). No wait, I do remember now (because I just re-read the previous paragraph). A positive feature of geezerhood is growing old together with the person you love.

For example, one of the most enjoyable things my wife and I do nowadays is look through our old photo albums and reminisce. We look at pictures of all the major events we’ve experienced together: our wedding and honeymoon; the births of our two daughters (which we definitely experienced together, although I must admit my wife was slightly more involved in the hospital maternity room that I was); the first home we purchased two blocks from the shore (which is now worth 30 times what we sold it for — Ugh!); that beat-up old Datsun pick-up truck I had in the mid-1980s; many dearly departed relatives (who in the photos were way younger than we are now — a very disconcerting feeling); and so many more.

Nostalgia is such a joyful and yet painful emotion. And at this point, my wife and I are basically the East Coast distributors of nostalgia. When we spend an evening looking through the old photo albums, it fills our eyes with happy tears. Then we look at the clock and exclaim, “Wow, we stayed up way too late looking at these pictures!” This causes us to go to sleep at the ungodly late hour of 9:26 p.m.

Anyway, if Coach Belichick and the 2019 High School Prom Queen are happy together, then I’m happy for them. But it is too bad they will never experience one of the most delightful aspects of being in love: growing old together. Although I’m sure being zonked out and snoring at 9:26 p.m. occurs often — at least for Coach Bill.

(The column “A Matter of Laugh or Death” appears each week in the Republican-American newspaper, Waterbury, CT.)

Peruse the archives at MerryCatholic.substack.com and MerryCatholic.blogspot.com