January 28, 2015 Article

The Old Coot lies about his age. All over again!

By Merlin Lessler

“I need to see some proof of age!” It’s a request we’ve all been confronted with. It starts when your parents enroll you in school. You have to prove you’re five. My mother and father, like most parents, couldn’t wait to whip out my birth certificate. It was a ticket to peace and quiet, if only for a few hours a day. 

I was 12 the next time I needed to prove my age, to get a paper route and to be allowed to ride the roller coaster at Palisades Park in New Jersey. Then came the most important one of my young life, turning sixteen and getting a driver’s license. I waited four long years for this milestone, driving the family car back and forth in the driveway every chance I got. And, around the block when no one was looking. The birth certificate came out again two years later. This time to prove I was old enough to buy a quart of beer, to drive at night, and to register for the draft. There was only one milestone left, or so I thought at the time, turning 21 and registering to vote. Now, it’s been switched; you’re considered mature enough to vote and fight for your country at eighteen but not mature enough to drink alcohol responsibly. I’m not sure of the logic in switching the voting age and the drinking age but I’m convinced it hasn’t worked. The number of teenagers that sneak a beer or two hasn’t changed. Tell a teenager he or she can’t do something, especially if you “forbid” it, and they’ll do it with more enthusiasm than if you said it was OK. I don’t know why we forget this when we become adults and try to “fix” everything with new laws.

This “proof of age process” doesn’t kick in again for about forty years. Senior discounts! At first you have to ask for them. And, sometimes prove your age. That’s when you hear, “Gosh, you sure don’t look that old!” You believe it, just like your mother believed it when she pushed you around the neighborhood in a stroller and a neighbor said, “Oh, what a cute baby.” But, soon enough, you no longer have to ask for the discount and the “Gosh you don’t look it,” comes to an end.

You no longer have to prove anything. Or, so I thought. Then, a few weeks back, I had to show my license to buy some beer for a New Years Day party. I didn’t mind, but I did think it was kind of stupid for a business to adopt a “100%, “ask for proof” policy. But, that’s what it’s come down to. We’re so afraid of making a mistake and facing the consequences enacted by the geniuses in Albany and Washington that we ask old guys like me to dig out their ID’s to prove they’re over 21. A five year old could tell that! 

My big fear, and I know it’s coming, is that I’ll start being asked for proof of age all over again: at coffee shops, so they can inform me that people my age cannot buy a small coffee and occupy a booth for over 15 minutes – at the entrance to the roller coaster I wasn’t allowed to ride when I was too young and now, it will be because I’m too old -  at the DMV, so they can reduce my privilege to drive to that of a junior license holder (no more driving at night and no road trips with a car full of old coots). When I complain about this, I’ll get the same answer I get when I complain to the doctor about my latest physical limitation. “You have to expect that at your age!” I wish I had a younger brother so I could “borrow” his ID and lie about my age. With proof! Another example of history repeating itself.