Thus we play the fools

With the time,

And the spirits of the wise,

Sit in the clouds and mock us.

— Shakespeare, 2 Henry, IV, II, 2

TIME is one thing that people always play the fool with, as they never know when to stop, and always think that the party will go on forever. It doesn’t, and when the music stops or the legs get too weary to dance, it’s time to hobble on home, or dance more slowly. And yet, so many of us linger way past the time, overstay our welcome and are mocked by others who look on.

It applies to so many: boxers way past their prime who refuse to quit, footballers who still have the name, but not the ball skills anymore; Lotharios, lovers, one-time ladies men who have not the looks, the ability or the wherewithal to woo women, but still insist on trying. Legends in their own minds. They just don’t know when to stop. But let me stop right here and bring some feedback to ‘Female Preparations’.

Hi Tony,

Your article made me laugh out loud in places, and like you, I thought that women came naturally smelling nice, feeling soft and probably had the sexy lingerie on under their clothes the whole time. I hope they don’t blame us for the pressure they go through before, during and after a date. And in case my woman is wondering, it is most definitely appreciated.

Carl

Dear Mr Robinson,

Re Female Preparations, your article was as enlightening as ever, but why sound so surprised? After all these years of ‘telling it like it is’, how come you didn’t know the lengths to which women must go to appear ‘natural’ for their men? It’s nothing new, all that’s changed is the style and brand names.

Lorna

Dear Daddy Oh,

Well now that your source has revealed all (why did she do such a thing?), let me give you and all your male readers some more advice; forget everything she says. Don’t be bogged down by technical details. After all, when you drive a car or use a cell phone, you don’t care about the conveyer belt it was created on, do you? So just enjoy the results the way that we want you to. You come to drink milk, not to count cow.

Vickie

My daughter who lives in Rome came home for the holidays after many years of not experiencing Christmas in Jamaica. Naturally, in between her many forays, I took her up and down to reacquaint her with the country and visit relatives. Now, she is tall, elegant and has a model’s features, courtesy of her mother, of course, so she attracted the stares of men and women wherever we went. Everywhere we walked, people just assumed that she was my lady friend and not my daughter.

I could see the raised eyebrows from the women, and the approving winks from the men. I got weary explaining that she was my daughter and not my woman. While sitting at Devon House having a patty, one guy approached us and loudly queried, “Daughter or wife, daughter or wife?” When I answered “Daughter,” he insisted that it was not so, and shouted back, “Wife, for she look German.” At first we thought, “What a man bright, forward and out of order,” but on reflection, concluded that at least he was honest enough to state what others were thinking but were afraid to say. We Jamaicans certainly not easy.

I tell you all this because for the first time, I now realise how those older men who have women less than half their age must feel when they’re out in public. Many people would say, they just don’t know when to stop. To take it even further, my daughter attended one of those Christmas parties, Utopia, came back and told me that she saw a few of my schoolmates there. When I got the names, I realised that they were guys way older than me, and they went solo too, looking for young girls to pick up.

Now, those guys must have stood out like ageing donkeys in a thoroughbred race at Caymanas Park. Still running down young girls in public places, they just don’t know when to stop. “Is who that old man at the bar trying to pick you up?”

“Oh, that’s Peter, my father’s schoolmate.”

“Him don’t know when to stop eh?!”

Of course, they say that age is just a number, and you are young as you feel, and 40 is the new 30, but for heaven’s sake, you must know when to hang up your boots, man. You look ridiculous at a teenie-bopper party trying to pick up chicks. If you must go out with a young girl, take her to your spots, elevate her, lift her up, enrich her, and don’t go down to her age group sessions.

And yet, knowing when to stop is so difficult. Few things are as pathetic as watching someone, way past their prime, still acting like they’re the cat’s pyjamas, the belle of the ball, when in truth, they look like what the cat dragged in or a deflated beach ball. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee, and it’s the bell that says, come home now, the party’s over. But do you hear it when it rings?

Mercifully in the workaday world there is a thing called retirement, and even though the age of retirement has gone up, there is still a time when you have to call it quits, go home and enjoy the rest of your days, or find something that is less demanding than the stressful career that you toiled at for 30 years.

Still, there are some people who refuse to go, and will try to hang on for dear life, even when they’re way past their productive years. But it’s really in the world outside of work that people don’t know when to stop. It manifests itself in clothes, and the saying, ‘Clothes maketh the man’, could very well be, ‘Clothes maketh the clown’. It’s all well and good to wear your pants slung down beneath your ass, and bling chains draped around your neck, plus more earrings than the lights on a Christmas tree. But it’s really pathetic to see a man in his late 40s or early 50s dressed like that. He just doesn’t know when to stop.

The same applies to women too, who do not dress age-appropriate, wearing mini skirts and tight-fitting tops that would look great on a young taut body, but really pitiful on an older frame.

But it’s the men who are most guilty of not knowing when to stop. Somehow the idea of growing old gracefully eludes them, and they cling desperately to the memories of their youth. I was at a function over the season when some guys, older than me, called me and asked about a young lady who was there. She was the daughter of a friend of mine, and was about 22 years old. Yet those guys still insisted on wanting to know her, still thought that they were still in the game, not knowing when to stop.

I’m by no means saying that people must simply stop and be put out to pasture; far from it. But you must know your boundaries, and not overstep your capabilities. It was Clint Eastwood in one of his movies who said, “A man must know his limitations.” If perchance any of those ageing Don Juans do manage to snare one of those young girls, you’ll see an instant transformation. First of all, he’ll change his car to a newer, sportier model. Then he’ll start to dress in the trendy, modern, fashionable styles.

Remember that song by Carly Simon, “You’re so vain, I bet you think this song is about you.” Or this other song, “You’re the greatest dancer.” Well, the words from those songs will be his theme, and woe betide us if he hears them being played at an oldies session. He’ll hit the dance floor like a whirling dervish, showing off funky dance moves that went out with the Ark. He thinks that the world revolves around him. He will now desperately try to keep up with his young girlfriend, but you know that no matter how fit an old racehorse is, he can only manage so many furlongs before he gasps for breath.

But even so, they don’t know when to stop, and older men have confided in me what their priorities are. When they go to buy their blood pressure pills, diabetes medicine, and their Viagra and the money is short and they can’t buy them all, they’ll always choose the Viagra. That’s the performance-enhancing drug of the used-to-be stud, who doesn’t know when to stop. It has caused the ruin of many men who take too many pills, some I know personally, but those who survive tell me that they’ll never stop, for, “It’s death before dishonour, Teerob, death before dishonour, me haffi dead pon it, but me nah stop.”

For others though, good sense prevails and they know when to stop. Over the season I saw some friends of mine whom I hadn’t seen in a long time, so I asked them why they quit the social scene. The reply was, “Listen man, I don’t want to be seen as any old man hanging around teenage parties looking like an old dog. So I just cool and hold my corner and go to certain mature places.” Sound advice, I thought.

So folks, it’s not about giving up the game, or being put out to pasture, but rather playing in your league, and at a moderate pace too. It’s all about pacing yourself and when the time comes, knowing when to stop.

More time.

seido1@hotmail.com

Footnote: The Junior School Challenge Quiz is seven years old, and Windward Road Primary has won it four years in a row. For the past two years the final has been between Windward Road Primary and St Richards Primary. In fact, the top four schools last year were Windward Road, St Richards, Coronaldi and Black River, all primary schools. A fantastic achievement. And yet there are some people who would try to denigrate this by saying, “Oh, it’s not an indication of the brilliance of those schools, they train hard for it, that’s all.” Hello!! But I bet you that if it was the prep schools dominating the Junior Schools Challenge you would never stop hearing how superior and brilliant those schools are, complete with full-page congratulations. We must give what is due and heap praise on those who work for and achieve success. The non-achiever looks at the achiever and calls him ‘lucky’.