It’s life’s illusions I recall

I really don’t know life…at all. -Joni Mitchell

The other day a friend was telling me that his twenty-something daughter works out at a gym where at least 80% of the patrons are guys.

“Does she get hassled by guys trying to pick her up all the time,” I asked.

“Naw”, he replied, “they’re all too busy checking themselves out in front of the mirror.”

On any given day if I’m not playing hockey I’ll go to the gym. Most of the days I do play hockey I’ll go to the gym anyway. As a warmup, you see. So I sit in the sauna with a lot of young guys and eavesdrop in on their conversations, when they have one, that is. In between having their hearing hindered by earbuds and with every second word being either ‘Bro’ or ‘Dude’ sometimes I can follow something that could be loosely described as a conversation.

I’m especially wide-eyed on hearing how their parents let their girlfriends stay overnight and also how their fridges are full of Camembert and Brie. I can’t help but think back to my own strict upbringing regarding the fair sex, but also what was in the fridge. Like, “Dude, what happened to the Velveeta?”

Lest you’re thinking that I’ve crossed the line completely to where a grumpy old man sits on his front porch yelling at the clouds, let me say that I do have sympathy for young people growing up in today’s world. And because of my gender, special empathy for young males. It seems as if discrimination is outlawed everywhere except in their case, and the old-time model of maleness no longer exists. So they have to carve out a new image. And given that there exists so much uncertainty, with a new gender appearing every week or so, confusion must reign.

Change of course is a part of life, but a lot of it leaves this particular Boomer in a state of agitated confusion; my old standards having all the solidity of loose sand on a stormy, wave-washed beach. It was just two weeks ago after just finishing a set of stomach crunches in the gym that I looked up and there was a young woman smiling at me.

“Well,” I thought, “all this exercise is working out beyond my wildest dreams.”

“Mr Perras?” she asked.

“Yes?” The face was familiar but 31 years of teaching had dropped some of the names in a now-jumbled memory bank.

“It’s Katelynn,” she replied, in order to help me out. Ah, of course. I had taught her in several classes: History, Law, Politics, Comparative Religions…

Katelynn had finished her Master’s and was serving in an expensive Bank Street restaurant until she landed something more in line with her education. We had a great time reminiscing and then, small world as it is, my daughter Rachelle found herself with a job serving at the same restaurant as my former student.

“Is your father as ultra-liberal as he used to be?” Katelynn asked Rachelle as they waited in the kitchen to pick up their orders. Rachelle told me she wondered if Katelynn was confusing me with someone else, or whether she had recently taken a hard hit to the head. Rachelle thought back to the last time she had heard me cursing out Justin Trudeau…uh, that morning. “No, I don’t think you could say that,” was all my daughter could say.

So, that’s how I entertain myself these days, playing hockey, working out, writing and looking back at the various incarnations of one David Perras. I’m not exactly saving the world, in fact I had always held out hope that the world would save me. But I don’t offer up my opinions as much anymore as I age. As usual, no one is listening anyway and they’ll probably be different from the ones I have tomorrow.