The case for age maximums. Whoa! Are people really talking about that? Yes.

We’ve always had age minimums. You couldn’t get a drivers license until you were 16. You couldn’t vote until you were 21, then it became 18. Workers need to be 14 or 16 for most jobs, and now some politicians want to change that to 12 (and shame on them!). You need to be age 35 to be President (more about that in a moment). Military service requires enlistees to be at least 17. In most states you need to be at least 18 to marry and some pols want to lower that minimum (shame on them too!). You must be 18 to rent a car, and coincidentally the reason for that is because it’s the minimum age to sign a contract.

Perhaps because there’s been so much attention given to Biden’s age (and Trump’s), the discussions about age maximums have come to the fore. Looking at the rationale for age minimums, you would have to conclude that the reasoning behind them was a sense that one must be mature enough to fight, vote, marry, drive or work.

Okay, then why have age maximums? Are we not mature enough? We’re like fine aged cheddar or Parmigiano-Reggiano. If maturity is not the problem, what then? Surveys suggest that most voters believe there should be an age maximum for elected officials. The problem arises when the discussion turns to what the age maximum should be. Should it be the age when they run for office or the age they must resign from office?

One man’s senility is another man’s maverickness (that can’t be a word but it should be). Bernie Sanders was 77 when he ran in 2020, a year older than Biden. Are some 80-somethings still sharp when it comes to decision-making and cognizance? Most definitely the answer is yes. That means it will be very hard to define exactly how old is too old. (Going back to age minimums for a moment, you could also make the case that some 16-year-olds are probably mature enough to vote and possibly more maturely than their parents.)

I don’t want to get paranoid about this, but if there are going to be age maximums for elected officials, couldn’t they cap the drinking age next? Going to have a real problem with that one.

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. You can also visit his author page here. His newest mystery novel, Rio Puerco Demise is available on Amazon. His first mystery novel, Head Above Water, is also available on Amazon. But that’s not all. You can also purchase the Best of BoomSpeak on Amazon.

Last year was my fifth year of retirement, and I’m pleased to report I’m getting better at accomplishing very little. In 2023, I read a lot of crime fiction, wrote a bunch of blog posts, took a few road trips, watched a couple dozen shows on TV, walked, stretched, swam, cooked and ate delicious food. Dabbled at art.

I’d say it was a fine year. As a recovering over-achiever, it feels good to enjoy simple pleasures and chill. I don’t really like to keep count, as my last job was all about metrics gone wild. That said, you may be interested to learn I also enjoyed 21 blissful hours of full-body massage and about 100 rounds of golf.

Now for a “deep dive” into retirement math.

At an average of 4.5 hours per round, that’s 450 hours of golf. If one assumes a 40-hour work week, 450 hours converts to 11.25 weeks of golf, and that is the equivalent of playing golf for more than two months of the year!

My massages added up to $1,960. However, I don’t dye my hair, so let’s deduct $125 per month from massage expenditures. That leaves us at $460, which a working person such as myself might have spent on makeup, shoes, dry cleaning or even Botox. So, let’s just wipe the slate clean and accept that in retirement math, my massages are free.

There might be something to metrics after all. Seriously, I don’t think I’m playing enough golf.

Donna Pekar is an aging badass (for real) who lives in California and writes Retirement Confidential.

You’ve seen the news about Orca whales attacking the rudders of ships off the Iberian coast? Animals gone amuck. A sci-fi movie for real. Well, I can relate in my own backyard way. I’ve got woodchucks…ground hogs…whatever you want to call them on my property, giving me a taste of nature in attack mode.

It started one morning when I went to my workshop in the basement where I have a large window-well above my chop saw. I cut a cleat for a box I was making, looked up and noticed a family of woodchucks in the bottom of the well staring at me like I was a chimpanzee in a zoo and they were visitors on the other side of the glass. So, I chucked a piece of wood. Scared them. But how much wood can you chuck at a…never mind. See, they were getting to me.

I had noticed a burrow in my flower garden. Well, more than noticed. I stepped into it. Up to my knee. Had a hell of a time getting my foot out. Limped around for a couple of days. Something had to be done. Since I live on the edge of a smallish city, I couldn’t fire a gun unnoticed or safely. I tried a live trap baited with cantaloupe. Groundhogs like cantaloupe in case you’re interested in their dietary habits. So, I caught one. Looked like one of the those in the window well. But with woodchucks, it’s hard to tell. Anyhow, this guy was not happy with me. Boy can they scowl.

Animal control couldn’t/wouldn’t help with disposing of the critter. So, I tried the humane thing of putting the trap in a wheelbarrow and trundling out to a nearby woods where he happily scurried into the brush. Two days later I spotted another ‘chuck nibbling my newly planted bean sprouts. I watched. He stared at me, as if to say, ‘Yes?’ Took another bite. Had a lot of attitude for someone who lives in a hole in the ground. Could it be the same guy I had exiled the day before? Hard to tell.

Caged him again. This time I got a can of day-glo orange spray paint, spritzed his tail before hauling him off to the woods. Next morning, I noticed a groundhog with an orange tail scurrying across my lawn. Caught him again. Boy, he must be cognitively challenged or a foody hooked on a fresh-fruit diet.

Time for another strategy to get him and his kin off my property. I bought a gizmo you attach to your tail pipe, put a blanket over the live trap, put both together in my garage and started the car. An hour later, I pulled back the blanket to find an angry woodchuck glaring at me. Maybe he didn’t appreciate having his tail painted?

So, anyway, when I see those posts about Orcas, I sure hope oceanographers can come up with better animal management strategies than I could.

Retired trainer, and writing instructor, Joe Novara lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Writings include novels, short stories, a memoir and various poems, plays, anthologies and articles. Read more at https://freefloatingstories.wordpress.com/

That night in July we met at a sandpit bordering the graveyard. I had come with my boyfriend Walker and his buddies. It felt like most of our other aimless, small-town summer nights. While the boys drank Budweiser, my boyfriend gave me a driving lesson. He had a ‘63 Rambler. The front seats went all the way back, perfect for exploring each other’s bodies. And I loved that boy, too. Almost fifty years later I can still recall his scent: Clearasil, Right Guard, Safeguard. All mixed with the musky aroma of sweat and desire.

The next year he would be off to college, unless he was drafted, and then who knew. But this night, carefree, we drove in circles, me behind the wheel, listening to Neil Young on the 8-track player.
Then I stalled out; when I restarted the ignition I panicked, digging the wheels deeper. We called the boys to help us, but they wanted to get home. The first moon landing would be broadcast. As cool as we thought we were, no one wanted to miss it.

We couldn’t budge the car. The gang left us in time to see Armstrong and Aldrin take their first bouncing steps, as unsteady as the boys after drinking their 16-ounce cans of beer. We left the car in the sand and walked home.

It wasn’t until 20 years later, at a wedding or a funeral, that my boyfriend confessed how disappointed he was at missing history. He joked about it, but I could tell. It hadn’t mattered to me. I was firmly planted on the earth with people I loved. They were not drafted yet. I could still taste his sex in my mouth that night. That is what I remembered.

My boyfriend got a high draft number, but we broke up anyway. I moved out of state; the boys all stayed in our small town. Most survived, but not all. Whenever I returned home over the years for this one’s wedding or funeral, our talk always drifted back to the night in the sand pit, the night I got the Rambler stuck, the night we zigzagged through the woods back home, everyone sitting on the edge of couches in small ranch houses, tuned in on their black and white Motorolas, hoping it wasn’t a trick, expecting that the world was going to change any minute.

Lenore Balliro lives in Dartmouth, MA