Coming of age a rude awakening

There is no getting around it any longer. I am an old man … an old, old man.

Last week I signed up for Social Security. Although I have to wait until late February to get on the federal gravy train, the damage is done.

One of the few reasons I have kept New Hampshire John as a friend is that he is older than I am, by several months. You don’t know how precious that is. I also have a cousin who is older as well, but I had no choice in that. John called Tuesday to say that has only a few days before he turns … 62. John has taken up golf and is an exercise maniac who has a few hundred thousand dollars wrapped up in equipment that he keeps in his basement. He actually uses it. He runs marathons, or at least he did.

He said, “I can remember when people who were 62 were … old!”

The first crack in our armor happened when Carl Yastrzemski retired. After that all of the players seemed to be younger than we were. It occurred to us then that we probably would never make the major leagues, despite our Little League dreams. Every man who can walk thinks that, with a few breaks, he could have at least made the minors.

Now our old heroes are dropping like flies.

This summer it was Ted Williams. Gods do not die, do they? Baltimore Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas invented the National Football League, or at least we thought he did. When he died last week, it was another shudder through The Force. Now Mike Webster, the iron man center of the old Pittsburgh Steelers champions, has gone. Bob Hayes, once famous as “the fastest human,” also died last week.

It got even closer last week.

Got the news from Boston last week that an old West Roxbury pal had died. Paul Dateo lived a few doors down the street. “Pauly” thought he was Tarzan. He read every Tarzan comic he could beg, borrow and yes, steal. He read so many of them that he spent the entire summer vacation up a tree. When you went looking for Pauly, you ignored his house and went right for the tree. He would be up there in the branches, reading and rereading the Tarzan epics.

He also was addicted to the Tarzan movies, naturally, and was noted for his Tarzan yell, which he would demonstrate at the drop of a hat. He was the first one I knew to start lifting weights and developed a frightening body, as befitting any Tarzan pretender. He always was looking for a fight but very few would accommodate him. Certainly not me.

I always assumed that he would live forever, sort of Like Johnny Unitas.

Now, I suppose I will have to start reading the “Irish Funnies” known to non-Celts as the newspaper obituaries. I always laughed when my mother and father read every name in the Globe and Record obits, and tried to determine if the departed was a relative of someone they knew. They knew the address of every undertaker in Boston and a wake across town was not always a bad thing. They would see people they had not laid eyes on for years.

I always thought reading obituaries was an odd thing to do, a practice I would never follow.

That was before I got old, very old.

That was before I signed up for Social Security, for God’s sake.

But it’s not all bad. When do those checks start?

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.