Old Dads

Bill Burr makes me laugh so of course we were going to watch the Netflix movie, ‘Old Dads.’

It was funny, and was centered around a 51-year old man trying to understand the sensitivities of the younger generation.

Some laugh out loud stuff, but it isn’t lost on me that I’m sometimes lost when it comes to understand some of the new stuff.

I remember when I first heard that someone couldn’t eat gluten.

It never occurred to me that things could mess up someone’s digestive tract. When we were kids we’d possibly avoid eating something because:

“Gives me the shits.”

I never - and to this day - don’t think much about time off that I have at a job.

“I’m taking PTO,” someone once said.

“What the hell is that?”

“Personal time off. You have a number of those days that you’re entitled to take.”

Each year, some 37 years after graduating from college, I’ll get an email that tells me how many days off I’m entitled to before the end of the year.

Missed those memos.

Of course I’m lost when it comes to new music. Drake just tied the Beatles for most top ten hits.

If someone held a gun to my head and asked me to name a Drake song, I wouldn’t make it.

I’m lost on the details of the pronouns as well. I was meeting one of my kids friends and I was cautioned that the girl wasn’t comfortable being called she or her. 

“Just be careful.”

“How about I don’t speak at all?”

“That’ll work.”

So, I felt a little like Burr.

I saw a young kid yell across to an older man who was smoking a cigarette across the street.

“You shouldn’t smoke! It’s not good for you,” the kid yelled.

I knew the response before the old guy uttered it.

Two words - second word was ‘you’ - first word wasn’t ‘thank’.

And, I’m not in a unique position.

I’m sure that there’s a disconnect with each generation. My Dad didn’t fully accept rock and roll.

“It’s noise!”

Now, my kids don’t play a lot of rock and roll.

“No one is playing an instrument,” I’ll complain about their music.

Watched a clip from ‘All in the Family’ that included George Jefferson.

They were having a race-related argument.

It was hilarious…

…and if it aired today…

…there would be a month-long debate and those actors and writers would be forever cancelled.

Times change.

Old guys don’t.

We romanticize what we loved. I tell my kids about Wilt and Henry Aaron and how hard Jim Kelly got hit without ever campaigning for a roughing the passer flag by hammering the turf after pretending to fall.

“Yeah. Yeah. We got it, old man. Everyone was tough.”

I’ll never fully understand the constant hurt feelings or the fake outrage, and I wax poetic about those old days, for sure.

But we are making progress, I’m told.

It’s not important for me to understand it all!