Not a Groatsworth of Difference

I hope you like this post, as always, although, frankly, when I think of it, it won't make a groatsworth of difference if you do. It'd give me some temporary satisfaction, probably -- it's possible -- especially, you know, if you wrote in with your opinion to that effect. You might say, "Thanks for the laughs. I love your blog." Of course I'd like that, even though it'd quickly wear off, and in the end wouldn't make a groatsworth of difference.

I'm resigned to life like that. I really am. I'm 60 going on 70. And when you're that old one of the things you've had driven into your head is the idea of vanity. I'm getting pretty damned good at it. I see kids walking out of the stores with the latest shiny crap and I remember back when I did the same thing. The latest album, a new change of clothes. Then it goes on your shelf and in your closet and you're looking for a new high. The things you crave eventually don't make a groatsworth of difference.

Just the fact that I'm writing this doesn't really make a groatsworth of difference. I was laughing it up earlier this morning. It's been 12 hours, or just a little over, since I thought of it, and I was laughing like a hyena. Does laughter help? Yes, doctors say so. Laughter's the best medicine, helps extend your life, they say. But let's say it extends your life an additional 10 minutes. Yes, that's an extension, but does it make a groatsworth of difference in the whole scheme of eternity? Fat chance.

I've been thinking a lot about eternity lately. Again, I'm getting old. I used to pray, "If I should die before I wake..." back when I didn't really mean it. Now I'm praying it sobbing like a baby, sweating as it were great drops of blood. Beyond just the process of dying, I've been dwelling on what happens to dead people. Even going so far as to look up (Google) information on the decomposition of the body, how long it takes, etc. Look it up, you'll never sleep again. A body liquefies! And the resulting "soup" they call "corpse liquor." I'm not making that up! They go to exhume you and you're just a puddle of slop in the bottom of a casket. One of the junior cops is puking behind the tree, but to you, measured now in fluid ounces, none of it makes a groatsworth of difference.

If it's going to make something close to a groatsworth of difference, you have to tackle the problem now, while you're alive. Which is one of the big reasons I've underlined and bolded and red-asterisked the word "CREMATION" in my final arrangements. Put me to the torch! That's what I'm saying. Line up some fagots and put me on top. Douse it all with lighter fluid and be done with me. Actually, honestly, the crematorium has an oven strictly for cremation. I saw one one time when it was brand new. True story. I toured a new funeral home before they had their first body, even though, to be completely above board they had pre-sold several vaults in the wall. They said it went up to 1500 degrees and you were ash and bone in a flash. Like a microwave, only much hotter and faster.

Sorry about veering off into death. I know a lot of my most faithful readers are either so young none of this matters to them, or essentially brain dead, only looking at my site to bone up on their ABCs, so none of this makes a groatsworth of difference to them.

How about me? Should I go on? Is it going to make a groatsworth of difference? Would it make a groatsworth of difference if it did make a groatsworth of difference? Nope, not a groatsworth.

Wrong Sex Corrigan

OK, folks, it's official! I'm now 60 years old, having been born some time in the first three months of the year. And as people go, I'm definitely one who's getting "more bang for his buck" for being 60, since I've had a million thoughts, happy, sad, and in between, about this milestone. It sounds very aged, and yet I don't feel completely different; I just can't quit thinking about it. It's given me a lot of opportunities to reflect back on my life.

One of the facts of my life that I can't help thinking of, for some reason, is that I was proclaimed a girl when I was born! And I'm a guy! That sounds weird, and I know it is, but it was actually fairly common here in my town in the early 1950s. And my parents probably should have questioned the situation, being familiar with the problem, but in the excitement of the birth of their "little girl" they forgot. One thing to note: This was back when babies were immediately whisked out of the room away from the mother, to be tended by professionals. It wasn't like now, where the mother and father's care is seen as primary. So, being absent from them, they just had to take their word for what I was.

I said it was common for babies to be misidentified as to their gender back then, but it was only in our town, because the town's main obstetrician had problems seeing. In fact, he made so many mistakes, he was nicknamed "Dr. Wrong Sex Corrigan," a play on the famed aviator who ended up somewhere he wasn't going. Our "Dr. Corrigan," not his real name, had problems in making the right call, presumably when a baby was moving too much. I'm guessing here, but I'm thinking he just didn't want to second-guess himself, or seem less than professional, so the way he called it was the way it was. It took my parents a lot of money, time, and trouble to get the official birth certificate finally changed! Not to mention the embarrassing exams I was subjected to...

So here's the way it went down. I was born, I must have moved too much when "Corrigan" was making the identification, and he declared to my mother, "Madam, you have just given live birth to a female baby, a real doll, who will someday truly make the boys' heads turn!" She was like, "Thank you, doctor, for a successful delivery and the exceedingly good news! A girl in my own image!" Then I was whisked out of the room, not to be seen by her again till sometime early the next morning, when they allowed her to watch the nurse feed me.

In the years since, of course, I've heard many tales of Dr. Wrong Sex Corrigan, that in delivering girls he was proclaiming, "You have given birth to a fine, strong, bouncing man child," and the like. Sometimes he was right, but thanks to movement, he was more often wrong. This is one of the dangers of having poor eyesight, being cross-eyed or whatever, and trying to be an obstetrician. You give people big problems, and the child him- or herself can develop all kinds of complexes. To this day I like the color pink and hate jockstraps.

After a while, "Dr. Corrigan" either died or retired. Which was good, because people didn't like him, thanks to this whole gender business. I remember my grandpa -- I remember this clearly -- saying if he ever saw the SOB in the crosswalk he would run over him. Grandpa used words like "son of a bitch" all the time, and probably would've run over him, indeed, had he ever seen him in the crosswalk. But "Corrigan" was spared this fate by the fact that you never see a doctor in public, apart from the office. This is true: The only doctor I've ever seen in public was a doctor people liked.