Boomers and beyond: Bill Geist’s book on aging a winner

If you’re a fan of CBS 7 a.m. “Sunday Morning” television show, you’re no doubt familiar with one of its commentators, the whimsical and irreverent Bill Geist.

His off-beat subjects are always entertaining, but until I read “Boomer” Geist’s book, “Big Five-Oh,” I had no idea this guy is so darn funny. Every page had me laughing out loud – I’d never done that before. It’s a “two-thumbs-up,” feel-good read.

When he wrote the book in 1997, Geist had just passed that monumental milestone – turning 50 – an event he feels is synonymous with geezer-dom. If ever anyone was dragged kicking, screaming and swearing into his 60s, it is he.

Geist took this passage very hard. It all started when he received his AARP membership card. For him, that was it: incontrovertible evidence that he truly had entered the ranks of the “old.”

Whether you are a “boomer” or “beyond” (like me), we all can relate to these real and/or imagined foibles upon approaching 60, then 70, which continually gnaw at our self-esteem. We feel the same at age 60 as we did at age 49, and it’s infuriating that we now are classified as “seniors” and no longer are – not even a little bit – cool.

For everyone, buying a new pair of jeans takes tenacity and perseverance, but for a “mature” body, it’s a task of monstrous proportions. Geist devotes an entire chapter to this subject, titling it “Jeans Jam at the Credibility Gap.”

Here’s an excerpt from his opening paragraph: “Snorting and grunting, kicking and banging emanate from the stalls. … Cursing, too. For these are not horses … but humans, trying with all their might to make forcible entry into stiff pairs of new bluejeans in dressing-room stalls at the Gap.”

However, it isn’t just the middle-aged customer. Geist quips, “The whole nation has TPS (Tight Pants Syndrome.)”

He continues: “I still see myself in my jeans as a James Dean type, when Jimmy Dean pork sausage is more like it.”

Geist also laments his vastly diminished Cocktail Capacity while his Hangover Longevity Time is greatly increased.

Thanks to many hours in his “lab” and with great personal suffering, Geist has given us a precise formula for determining how long our hangovers will last. For example, if a 50-year-old drinks four martinis on Saturday night, … he can count on his Hangover Longevity (recuperation time) lasting until sometime Tuesday.

That clever, funny man, Bill Geist, who claims his crow’s feet are more like emu tracks, scoffed irreverently at Gail Sheehy’s upbeat book, “New Passages,” in which she glorifies our older years, calling them the “Flaming 50s,” “Serene 60s” and “Sage 70s.” He’s just not buying the “hype.”

Geist asks, “Who cares if the glass is half-empty or half-full when your teeth are in it?”

What makes Geist’s book so funny to people over 50, 60, 70 or 80 is that we actually have experienced almost all these hard edges of aging.

At the conscious level, we can deny the reality of aging – that always works pretty well for me. But nothing escapes our subconscious minds – it knows and remembers. This is why we can relate so intensely to Geist’s clever perspective on the predicaments and frustrations of losing our youth and entering the world of geezer-dom.

Would 40-year-olds find Geist’s book funny? That’s anybody’s guess – they probably would think it is fiction.

And could they relate to opening a childproof aspirin bottle with a hammer? It’s not vengefulness – it’s necessity.

Speaking of relating, anyone with bad knees will be able to relate to Geist’s “Twelve-Step ‘… Double Pump’ Program for 50-Year-Olds Attempting to Exit Taxicabs Unassisted.”

Steps (1) through (4) of the Geist method get you to the edge of the seat by the door and get the door opened.

Then you are to “(5) Swing outside leg out the door. Grab back of front seat and plant outside foot on pavement. Dig outside elbow into seat and grab top of cab door frame with inside hand. (6) Begin ‘Double Pump’ action by rocking forward. … (7) Then lunging backward … (8) and thrusting entire body upward in one burst, (9) expel air from lungs in loud, grunting sound (employed by powerlifters). (10) Grab top of cab door. (11) Stand and tuck in shirttail using opened door to conceal yourself from passers-by. (12) Close door.”

All things considered, humor’s a good way to go with this aging thing.