Abandoned halls echo with the sounds of long ago
now given power by a Modern Rock sound – Seven 13

We went “cyber bowling” last night with Gryphon. I don’t know if this is just a mid-west sort of thing but basically they turn the lights down, the music up and chase all the geezers away so the teens can have a fun Saturday night under the incessant blue glow of black lights. Nothing changes. It was sort of funny listening to the Juke box wars. Tired and sad looking middle agers in the bar would keep trying to get into their moods with dollars worth of pick up trucks and Patsy Cline, and the kids would insert their dollars to fight back with Usher, Eminem & Nickleback. So we bowled on under disco lights with a screaming culture war blasting from Behringer monitors swinging frantically over our heads. All you need is a good beat to keep the old people away. Or in this case keeping them off the lanes. And that’s been scaring me. I’m 40. How long before I’ll start complaining about the music?

Personally I’m with the kids on this one. I’m not ready for the Sunny Meadows Retirement Community quite yet. But judging by my piers this change of life must not be far off. I don’t mind my body aging too much. Yeah like everyone else I’m sure I’ve got a few more odd pains after a rolling session or a day in the surf but so what!? A few Tylenol and a couple more rolls and I’m back to normal. If I started complaining about it I’d be done for. To me it’s odd to see the same people who said, “don’t trust anyone over 30″ suddenly bashing the kids.

Maybe I don’t have a choice. Maybe there’s some gene that suddenly goes haywire. I can see it now. I’ll only want to go out paddling on warm sunny days. I’ll no longer long for surf and will go miles out of my way for a little protected area to launch from. My big adventure will be winning a game of GPS tic-tac-toe. I’ll complain that sea kayaking DVDs shouldn’t have bands like 713 on them.

I was watching a whitewater video the other day with an interesting tune that sampled White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane and mixed it into modern hip-hop beat. That’s sort of where I’m at. I’m into the mix. My body may be 40 but I’m not ready to retire.

Not yet.