I had a strange day recently. It ended up being kind of eye-opening – even enlightening – but was a little disconcerting while it was happening and immediately after.
It started off at the office. I finished up with clients for the day and grabbed the elevator to head down to the lobby and out to my car. During the short trip from 3 to L, the Muzak system – the elevator music – was playing the instrumental version of a song that seemed vaguely familiar, but even though I have a pretty good mind for music trivia, I couldn’t quite bring the title of the song or the singer to mind. No worries – I have a sure-fire method for retrieving stuff from my brain. I tell the librarian – that’s how I refer to the part of my brain that handles looking up facts and figures and useless information that I can’t immediately recall – anyway, I tell the librarian that there’s something I’m looking for, and I “explain” it to her as best I can, and I instruct her to go get the information for me. Then I let it go. Quite often, I have my answer within seconds to a few minutes, but sometimes it takes just a smidge longer. When that occurs, I “check back in” at regular intervals to see what’s shakin’.
So that’s what I did. I gave my orders to the librarian and went about my business, which in this case just meant saying good afternoon to the security guard, heading out to the car, and driving home. I had no more than started the engine when suddenly the librarian frantically burst into my consciousness with the info I had requested, and out loud I hollered, “Oh my God, that was Post Malone!!!” Now you might be thinking, “Who’s Post Malone?”, especially if you’re a boomer like I am. Or perhaps you know who he is, but ask, “Yeah, so what?” Well, I’ll tell you so what – elevator music is possibly best known for playing instrumental versions of older songs that have been around a while. You know…oldies. They do not usually play newer pop music, and certainly not the hip-hoppy, auto-tune, nouveau pop of the Post Malone variety. And yet, here was this elevator playing “Wow” by Post Malone. An elevator version of an “old” song from a dude who only graduated from high school about ten years ago, then suddenly burst onto the music scene.
You might also ask how I even know who this guy is, given that I grew up with Classic Rock, which is typically defined by Boomers and GenXers as 70s and 80s rock. Furthermore, I’ve been immersed in 90s Grunge/Alternative rock music for about a dozen years now, making up for missing out on it when it originally occurred (because I was mad-busy with grad school, work, church, and dating my girlfriend-now-wife). I lean towards the very Boomerly attitude that nearly everything after 2000 is crap, with a few notable exceptions. But I stumbled upon a video a friend posted on Facebook, and it was this young dude in a homemade “music video” that I thought was goofy, and I commented on that. My friend laughed me off and said, “I like him…he’s really good.” In deference to her, I proceeded to go down a Youtube rabbit trail of music videos and interviews with this Post Malone guy, and to my great surprise, within pretty short order, I became a fan.
So anyway, that was the first weird event of this progressively disconcerting day. The next thing happened after I got home from work. I went to check the mail, hoping for some insurance company checks, only to find nothing but another piece of Medicare advertisement junk. There’s been a rash of it lately, and it’s sort of troubling. It’s as if they think some old person lives here, and it’s getting a bit annoying really. As per usual, I chunked it into the recycle bag without even looking through it, because clearly it does not pertain to me. Ain’t nobody got time for that! And besides, I was on my way out to grab a Pepsi over at the 7-11, so off I went, forgetting about the junk mail situation.
After I grabbed my Pepsi and pulled out of the parking lot, the third thing happened. I was about to get caught in some tight traffic, due to road work shutting down a couple of lanes, so I decided to cut into a strip center parking lot and see if I might bypass some of the wait time. It just so happens that the place where I cut into goes right by one of the last remaining Taco Buenos in my part of Fort Worth. On a total whim, I decided to stop in and grab me up a bean burrito. Trying to keep a long story short, I have had a love relationship with Taco Bueno bean burritos since the first time I ever tried them. I don’t know what they do, but they are head and shoulders above any other bean burrito I’ve ever had anywhere. So, I got my burrito and went back to my car and got buckled up, but I couldn’t wait until I got home, so I unpacked that bean burrito and took a bite, right there in the parking lot. As I did so, the flavor of that thing hit me with a wave of nostalgia, and suddenly, an understanding of the weirdness I had been feeling all day hit me like a ton of bricks and became crystal clear.
You see, I mentioned this love relationship with Taco Bueno starting with the first time I ever had one. What I didn’t mention is that the first time I ever had one was at the very first Taco Bueno Fort Worth location, over off of Camp Bowie and (I believe) Curzon. And when I say “very first”, I also need to say that it was the very day that place opened, in 1978!! Taco Bueno was created by the same guy who invented Crystal’s Pizza, where I worked, and some of my Crystal’s coworkers/friends helped open that new restaurant. Anyway, if you do some quick math in your head, you might see where I’m going with this. 1978 was 46 years ago, and I was 18 at the time that Bueno opened. And that makes me 64 years old. And that cannot be possible, first of all because NO!!! and also because biting that dang bean burrito made it feel like the first time was not that long ago.
Well, as fate would have it, it turns out that some “old guy” DOES live in my house, and that OG is ME! I had my first Taco Bueno burrito nearly 50 dang years ago!! The Classic Rock I grew up with was 50 years ago – even the Grunge and Alternative is 25-35 years ago! The elevators usually play “oldies” and apparently a 28-year-old’s music from 10 years ago now qualifies! I’m getting Medicare notices because I will GO ON MEDICARE at the end of this year!! I have somehow become the old guy. And this is why I kept having this nagging feeling of weirdness all day – because I was apparently clueless about that reality! How is any of this possible?!
Thankfully, that’s not where the story ends! Despite the weirdness of the day, and despite being sort of caught off guard by that particular ton of bricks epiphany, I actually recovered quickly, and a wonderful sense of enlightened awareness came to me. Regardless of the seeming blink-of-an-eye passing of chronological time, I’m still here – I’m still standing! I’m doing just fine and I’m relatively healthy and happy. And although people and places and things change and some go away, many are still here. I have a wonderful marriage, faith, family, and friends. I still have work that is meaningful and (although very mentally taxing at times) enjoyable. I still have my music hobbies and continue to improve, I can still exercise moderately hard, I’m finally learning that new language, and then some! An old dog CAN learn new tricks – an open-minded Boomer can be a fanboy of a 28-year-old rap-rock-hip-hop-autotune pop star, while still being a fan of classic metal heads like Judas Priest! Medicare still exists and will reduce our insurance cost, and it will cover the cataract surgery (WTH???) that my eye doctor has been harping about for the last five years! And a delicious Taco Bueno bean burrito, nearly 50 years later, is still the best dang bean burrito in the history of ever!
Time does keep moving and years do pass, but as long as I’m still here in the game, so to speak, there’s a lot to love and enjoy and be grateful for. Despite the various hardships I’ve encountered on the journey, as Joe Walsh said (also 50 years ago!), life’s been good to me so far.
Peace and blessings to you all. JB