Monday, September 30, 2013

Buffalohair: Growing Old 101: Where Does Buzzard Skin Come From?


Growing Old 101: Where Does ‘Buzzard Skin’ Come From?

120px-SanwitDon’t you just hate growing old? Does not happen over night but there is that one moment in your life you discover; “I’m and old buzzard, Shiza!!”. Was it the mirrors reflection of an old geezer running around in a tattered ‘AIM’ tee shirt, rolling a doobie with ‘Going Up the Country’ (Canned Heat) playing in the back ground? Is my spotted pony, that 53′ ‘Jockey Shift’ Harley Davidson, in the driveway actually just a glorified mobility scooter? And whats the deal with all this ‘extra skin’ under my arms? Oh, Oh yeah……….buzzard skin.


Then the youngsters quip:“Yup gramps, you’re like a bottle of vintage fine wine or aged cheese”, I’d hear. Nothing like being compared to rot gut wine and smelly cheese. Why not throw in a green fuzzy piece of stale fry-bread while you’re at it? Oh boy, I feel a lot better knowing I’m almost ready to be harvested and eaten. Maybe I’ll be made into a wafer like in the movie ‘Soylent Green’. That’s where old buzzards were collected then euthanized and baked into tasty green wafers with nutrients left behind by the former host. Rather than cremated or buried, I can choose, smoked, fried or BBQ, screw a casket, I need carry out.  Don’t laugh, we are already eating genetically mutated farm animals chock full of human DNA. Is that considered cannibalism?


Being put out to pasture at ‘Clonazepam Acres Assisted Living Home’ until I’m harvested and made into pemmican for the Winter Solstice  is not my idea of enjoying the golden years. Well youngster, you look like a zit that needs to be popped you frigging roody-poo condescending sidewalk commando. And no, I don’t have one foot in the grave, this size 13 Redwing Boot is on its way up your keester so hold on.

Administering a royal ass kicking is one of the few joys left my old and decrepit body can deliver these days. Granted, dancing around for 30 minutes in fisticuffs is just out of the question, my oxygen level you know. If I waved my arms to much for to long I might take to flight with all this buzzard skin flapping around. I’d rather disenable agent provocateurs apace, before I have to pee or watch ‘Duck Dynasty’ of course.


I used to get carded at restaurants when I asked for the senior citizen discount, sort of like when I was a kid buying booze and smokes. Short of grabbing a wheelchair or walker, waitresses never question my buzzardness anymore, they just want an Indian name. That sort of sucks, congratulations I am officially an old geezer. Suddenly I feel all warm and fuzzy inside or is it some kind of hot flash or something? Don’t ask me, this is my first time being an old buzzard. I lost my owners manual back in the 60′s but I know it’s this frigging buzzard skin that snitches me off age-wise. Screws up my tattoos real bad to. Dragons and eagles look more like worms & pigeons. Skulls & demons now resemble ‘Howdy Doody & Felix the Cat’, and all the other stuff looks like postage stamps and ‘Garbage Pail Kids’. Gawd it sucks to get old.


My long wavy dark hair is turning platinum blond and frizzy like I put my tongue in a wall socket, whats up with that? One alternative is to use that Grecian stuff but gads it turned my homie’s hair into the color of cat urine. I’ve seen dudes with dyed hair and it reminded me of an Elvis impersonator with an oversized hair piece glued to their head. At least I don’t have to comb from the back of my neck over my forehead with all 18 strands of hair. What about that colored silly string looking stuff guys spray on their melons? Guess I should not be so insensitive about hair and going bald. At least bald guys don’t get beaten to death by buzzard skin when strolling through the park on a windy day or gourd dancing at a Pow Wow or social.


I’ll take up skydiving & base jumping and use my buzzard skin as a built in Wingsuit and soar through the heavens like an eagle in flight. Merrily I will fly past towering peaks gliding through the sky in aeronautical bliss. Am I a bird or a plane I ponder, as the wind rushes past my ears. Suddenly I glide into a thicket of cottonwoods and ceder in one tumultuous crash. Branches and twigs snap as my carcass pirouettes out of control through the treetops and onto the forest floor below. Then, in an epiphanous revelation I realize; I have to either buy or pull a ripcord at Walgreens or was that Homeland? Does my Part D cover ripcords and buzzard skin? And no, I was not a bird after all, just another Dreamliner suffering equipment failure. Maybe I’ll pass on aeronautics as a second hobby.


With a growing untapped market filled with old codgers, will the manufacturers of Depends come out with sportier diapers with cool pictures like skulls & cross bones or other spiffy pirate stuff? Flames would be bitchen to sport around in or better yet “David Mann” inspired motorcycle diapers. Indian and Harley Davidson could come out with their own disposable diapers for ‘seasoned’ motorcycle enthusiast. For the elderly art aficionados Van Goug or Rembrandt themed pull-ups and Scrimshaw catheters could be the next rage. Custer and Chivington Depends would be a hot seller on my rez for obvious reasons. Customized Depends could sport pictures of ex spouses, fetid public officials and anyone else who deserves a ‘crap sandwich’. Oh the possibilities…………….


I can see Cabela’s Fall Catalog with sales on camo diapers and buzzardly accessories like balloon tires  and wilderness kits for electric scooters. Prune flavored energy drinks and pureed food stuffs would fill backpacks and camp kitchens. ‘Tanka Bar’ could come out with a delicious buffalo paste treat for the dentally challenged. Possibly toss a few GPS or locator beacons into the mix, just in case one of us old coots forget what we were doing and simply wander off, looking for a place to pee, read the latest issue of Prevention or try to figure out exactly what side ‘AARP’ is on anyway. Ah yes, nothing like spending time in the great out doors. I can almost smell the pine and the cedars as they enjoin the brisk morning air as it intermingles with the sent of fresh coffee brewing,…..and ole Uncle Floyd taking his morning constitutional while arguing with a diaper stealing chipmunk.


The ‘Captain’ might come out with prune flavored spiced rum when it’s obvious there are more of us old geezers then young poop butt sidewalk commandos. Nightclubs will be ‘Rascal Friendly’ and along with a row of motorcycles, a row of mobility scooters will be parked. Tow truck companies should develop a new type of lift when old geezers get buster cruising their scooters, wasted on Gerital shooters. And hopefully in the midst of this senior citizen revival someone will come up with a cure for buzzard skin, gray frizzy hair and bald heads. If we all lived naked there would be no need for diapers, but a pair of rubber boots or moccasins would be in order.


I always drooled profusely, flung feces at passing motorists and embraced dementia so this is not an issue in my case, thank goodness. But coping with buzzard skin has become an ongoing challenge, for vanities sake at the very least. Lifting weights does not seem to cure buzzard skin and running a zillion miles a day only causes turbulence and dust on the mountain trails I traverse. If two buzzard skins pass one another on a trail bystanders can be injured as the buzzards try to avoid slapping each other with their ‘wings of lard’. Bicycles are a particular hazard on mountain trails since buzzard skin has been known to get caught up in the spokes, I hate it when that happens. On the bright side, bears hear you coming way before you get there, “Smokey, Party of three…”, bon appetite.


Ointments, salves, creams, lotions, elixirs and bath salts of every kind did nothing. A dunking in crap smelling volcanic water by some priest dressed in Beavis & Butthead boxers reciting Pee Wee Herman’s, “Mecca Lecca High, Mecca Hiney Ho”, didn’t cure buzzard skin one bit either. To top it all off, out of nowhere hair began to grow on top of my nose and don’t get me started on my new unibrow or the hair that decided to grow in my ears, nose and back. Not just peach fuzz hair but gargantuan monster hair that is all thick, twisted, flat and umm,…..platinum blond. Hell with old age, I’m turning into a frigging Werewolf, or should I say Yeti since the hair is sort of snow colored.


Getting old sucks but there is a cool secret I’ll share. When you see an old timer cruising around, in some cases on a vintage Harley, 9 times out of 10 they are listening to Redbone, The Doors, or Bobby Darin in a cleverly disguised iPod called ‘the brain’. I doubt he or she will pay any attention to you while they are tripping on music and memories, especially if they are reminiscing ‘The Jimmy Hendrix Experience’ in L.A. at the Forum way back in the last century, by cracky. We made it this far so whats the rush? We’ll get back to you after the song is done or our memories disappear, which ever comes first.


When our old and blurry eyes gaze into yours we are not jealous of your youth or anything like that, we are only wondering; ‘if anyone is home’. In fact us old buzzards wonder if anyone is home societally speaking for it would appear the new stewards of this planet suffer acute fecal brain syndrome. In a darkly humorous sense I see a grand comedy from my vantage point, a comedy of errors intentional or not that will haunt humanity until nature sets things straight and the elders of my tribe know its coming. In fact old buzzards from all cultures know this era is doomed to failure because of the callousness, ineptitude and greed that earmarks this time we live. If you don’t see what is going on in society you have buzzard skin for eye lids but the joke is on you because us old buzzards will soon be out of here.


Whether we survive to see the conclusion of this dynamic change or not is of no real importance to us but the seeds we planted are. Sadly many of the young don’t listen to ‘sage wisdom’ from lessons learned in human history and are doomed to repeat therm. One day the knowledge of the past will be lost forever when the witnesses from the last generation are finally gone, buzzard skin and all. Only those who heeded the warnings of their elders and adhered to their traditions will survive the future, lock, stock and tomahawk.


And yes, they will eventually have buzzard skin…


Your Devil’s Advocate

Buffalohair


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Judy