97

Realized when I got home and checked my hi-tech calendar hanging on the fridge that I forgot to call my friend yesterday. He turned 97, a very respectable age. So just spent nearly an hour on the phone with him. My first question as always is "are you still right in the head?", to which the answer was yes. Then we went thru his physical problems, which are mainly his legs. He has a bit of trouble walking. Which didn't prevent him from driving the car today. He knows I think he should have given up driving years ago (like 25 of them) so it gives him great pleasure to inform me about this. But I had to give in when he told me that his "girlfriend", a woman of 80+ is a bit poorly and he had to drive to get her to his place. To drink coffee I was told. Guess that's what older people do, didn't actually push for details. He celebrated his birthday with "his boy" who is around 75 and his daughter. The great grandchild got her driving license just. We had a slight argument when determining just how many generations they were, I said 4, he said 3, but it turned out he didn't count himself. Then we discussed the domestic issues like the alcoholic that was living across from him (who renovated the kitchen, as supposed to the man who lived there before who always said he'd do it when he retired then promptly died just after retirement), and now the apartment has been sold to a younger couple (when I asked if "younger" meant less than 80 he laughed), and across the street this older woman has moved out to a retirement home (then died also) and it's unknown yet who will move in. These types of discussions. We then moved on to discussing current issues like Fritzl in Austria and how the hell it could happen, Obama (we like him both!) and what we can expect, thugs in business in general, and everything else in between. I took the opportunity of asking him about a dish I made which we discussed last time, and he told me what I did wrong. I now know how to perfect it. Only three years to go until he gets 100 years old. You go old man!