Old Farts

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OLD FARTS

At the urinal:

Jaydek: How many drops today?

Jo-Boy: Four. And you?

Jaydek: two. Boy (no pun intended), your prostate is working well.

Jo-Boy: Now go and wash those evil eyes of yours in Dettol.

Jaydek: Bring the chillies and the salt.

Historical Bowral in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales is a gem of a town. I have never seen it anything but green it is dressed with the finest greenery you can find in Australia and its flowers and gardens are to die for.

Its lush green meadows have been ideal for grazing since the area was first discovered in the late 1700s. Thus grazing and cattle-breeding has continued to drive the economy. Bowral became, an still, is the commercial centre of the Southern Highlands, as well as a service centre to the surrounding properties.

According to the Traveller, “Today Bowral is a decidedly up-market, some would say yuppified, tourist centre full of boutiques, gift shops, antique dealers, restaurants and cafes, bookshops and art galleries. It is possessed of a healthy climate and scenery reminiscent of rural England. There are a number of excellent municipal parks and playgrounds. With an economy focused on tourism, vegetables, dairying and grazing the current population is over 8000.”

It is a genteel kind of place with a good mixture of young people and the greying generation.

A couple of fellas are sitting in the verandah of a home in Bowral. There is an Esky within reach either of them and they have both feet on the verandah’s railing. “This is the life,” says 80-year-old Marlon (not Brando), a former wheat, cattle and this-and-that farmer. “God’s truth,” trumpets young Jason (Jacko), a 78-year-old former butcher. The two have been friends since kindergarten and have life paths of soldiering, celebrating, at every opportunity, the sweet bird of youth, then finding their working paths and sticking with it. Each was the best man at their other’s wedding, and a pall bearer at the funeral of each other’s wives. They have celebrated and toasted each other’s children and watched as they have spread their wings and now live in many parts of the world.

“I think this our twilight time,” says Brando, some matter-of-factly.

“You dope, we got an extra hour, it’s daylight saving you know,” haw-haws smarty pants Jacko.

“I know that, you mongrel. What I am trying to say is that we may not be around here much longer,” shouts Marlon.

“Have you got something serious wrong with yer? Is it cancer? Is your heart?” Jacko asks with a pained look on his face.

Marlon: “I am not at death’s door you silly bugger. I am just saying that we are that age when we have to give some thought for the hear-after.”

Jacko: “You sit there and fart all day thinking about the here-after. I am going to be thinking about the here and now. Anyway, pass us another bottle of the glorious here and now.”

Marlon: “Yer’not dead are yer? Get it yourself.”

Jacko: “You daft git.”

Marlon: "All I wanted to say was that should I die before you, would look after the funeral arrangements. I will have everything written down and mostly paid for. I would do the same for you."

Jacko: "You still got a bit of sense left in you, you old mug. Of course, I will do that, would not have it any other way."

A few days later they are all having a few at the Bowral Returned Soldiers’ Leagues Club. It is a kind a church for most senior citizens because it is a tangible link with the many who perished in the two world wars. Each year many if not all are remembered on Anzac Day. Compared to other entertainment areas, the RSL really does look after its members. For the seniors it is also a kind of refuge to meet and greet people you would not see often except at church and funerals, both of which are sometimes referred to as the new social clubs.

There is Eileen who still owns and runs the hairdressers and beauty salon and she is, of course, mother hen of this group.  There’s Joan who volunteers at the library, Jeanne who helps out at the meals-on-wheels for ailing folks, Allison who does nothing very much but is always at her prettiest best … even gone past 74. There are quite few others and yet others who come and say hello and stop for a chat.

Jacko: “Heyoup everybody. The old bugger is saying he is going to die one of these days. His blood tests are good, his heart is OK, kidneys are trotting on, lots of aches and pains … and this and that … but he told me the other that we were all going into the twilight zone.”

Eilleen: “What is bothering you my sugar bun Marlon? Is something seriously worrying you? Or this git just taking the piss?”

Jacko: “Tell her, tell her”.

Marlon: “Don’t listen to that senile twit who calls himself my life-long friend. With pals like him … I was just saying that since I had just celebrated my 80^th recently, the next decade looked a bit daunting … somebody said on radio that more people die in their eighties than at any other time in their lives. That is why I told him the eighties were a twilight time, not the Twilight Zone … although for him it could be the TZ.”

Jeanne: “Marlon don’t be afraid. Just take one day and one ache and one pain as it comes and goes. If you worry about it too much you might do yourself a serious injury or something. We don’t want anything happening to you or anyone. …

Jacko: “See, see, see. That is what I was trying to tell him…”

Eillen: “Your one to talk Jacko … do you know, he is turning out to be a regular good customer in the beauty department. I must say I am very proud that Jacko is really taking care of himself …

Marlon: “What, what …What has the silly git gone and done now?

Eilleen: “Jacko shall I tell him … or will you …?”

Jacko: “Oh OK blabber mouth … you might as well since you ….”

Eilleen: “Well, Jacko is having his face looked after … getting rid of the tramlines on his forehead, the chook’s feet on the sides of eyes, the bags under his eyes and a little touch up to his hair while he is having his hair cut. And, oh, he does love a head massage. He tells me he is a once-a-weeker at the Chinese massage parlour and once a fortnight at the physio. All I can say well Jacko and keep it up.”

Marlon: “OK boyo, you blithering twit, what have you got to say for yourself.

Jacko, amid some boisterous applause: “It is not a full paint job, just a touch up.”

And everybody fell around in heaps of laughter.

Parting shot: Eilleen: If any male here is feeling that macho cringe, got news for you. More and more men of all ages are reaching out for the men's beauty creams, the salons, health spas and this and that.

And Jacko is dating Lianne!

Based on a story related to me, have changed the names and the settings.

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Found this somewhere:

The ironic thing about the Boring Old Farts Touring Association is that they were actually warding off ageing, simply by being part of a social group.

The Blue Zones project, which studies people who live to 100 or more, says one of the nine keys to longevity is being part of a social group.

The Okinawans in Japan, who are among the longest lived people on the planet, have a tradition of forming a social group called a “moai”.

The other eight keys to living a long life are: exercise naturally; have a purpose; downshift your life to create less stress; eat until you’re 80 per cent full; slant your diet towards plants; drink one to two glasses of wine a day; belong to a faith-based community; put family first.

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Excerpt for 1001 nights:

They recount that in the city of Kaukaban in Yemen there was a man named Abu Hasan of the Fadhli tribe who left the Bedouin life and became a townsman and the wealthiest of merchants. His wife died while both were young, and his friends pressed him to marry again.

Weary of their pressure, Abu Hasan entered into negotiations with the old women who procure matches, and married a woman as beautiful as the moon shining over the sea. To the wedding banquet he invited kith and kin, ulema and fakirs, friends and foes, and all of his acquaintances.

The whole house was thrown open to feasting: There were five different colors of rice, and sherbets of as many more; kid goats stuffed with walnuts, almonds, and pistachios; and a young camel roasted whole. So they ate and drank and made merry.

The bride was displayed in her seven dresses -- and one more -- to the women, who could not take their eyes off her. At last the bridegroom was summoned to the chamber where she sat enthroned. He rose slowly and with dignity from his divan; but in do doing, for he was over full of meat and drink, he let fly a great and terrible fart.

In fear for their lives, all the guests immediately turned to their neighbors and talked aloud, pretending to have heard nothing.

Mortified, Abu Hasan turned away from the bridal chamber and as if to answer a call of nature. He went down to the courtyard, saddled his mare, and rode off, weeping bitterly through the night.

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The Hodja was sent to the Kurds as an envoy. Immediately upon his arrival he was invited to a banquet. He put on his fur coat and went. In the middle of the conversation he suddenly let a fart.

They said to him, "It is scandalous to fart like that."

"What?" he replied. "How was I to know that the Kurds would understand when I farted in Turkish?"

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