Life in the Ville by Jimmy Del Ponte

This article was first published on March 18, 2009.

“When I was a kid,” used to be the beginning of statements made by our parents, but I hear it coming out of my own mouth more and more lately. I can’t believe that I now qualify to talk about “the good old days.” When did that happen?

A recent reckoning came to me thanks to Facebook – I got a chance to see old photos up close as I posted them to the popular time-consuming online site. I look at these photos and say to myself “what the Hell happened to the last 30 years?” Well, it went by in a flash. As David Bowie said: “Turn and face the strange, ch-ch-changes!” I’m turning, and facing, and boy are they strange.

I am in an okay place, despite watching every cent for the first time in my life, but I am reminiscing a lot more lately for some reason. I know I am not mellowing out, because I am still a hot-headed big mouth blow hard (sometimes). I am just doing a lot of looking back lately, and here’s what I see – I am almost 56 years old and I am basically a kid stuck in an aging body. I think that goes for lot of my Somerville friends as well. We are still kids at heart.

Growing up in Somerville was a blast and we will always carry that sense of youthful humor. We laugh over the same silly things that have been amusing us for decades. We gather every so often and talk about our high school days, the cool cars we drove, and tell the same funny stories that we now have down to an art. We drive our kids to kung fu, hockey, basketball and the mall.

Sometimes our kids roll their eyes when we start talking about the old days, but I notice they also enjoy some of the crazy tales. We limit the time they spend on the computer, but increase our own surfing time. We see our bills going up and our cash flow going down. And finally, we have officially become our parents. And if I have become my father, I have the right to voice my opinion, just like he did.

I now make silly comments to the cashiers at Johnnie’s and Shaw’s about the amount my food purchase comes to. I say dumb stuff like “Jeez, these kids have to eat EVERY day?” The cost of eating is eating my heart out. They look at me like I am a deranged old coot, which may not be too farfetched! If you’ve seen me lately, you will agree that I am definitely not starving, so I am finding a way to continue eating my share at least. I constantly have to watch my ch-ch-changing … waistline. I wish that when I shop I could get back more ch-ch-change!

I may have to call up the “boys” and see if anyone wants to put the old band back together and go out and do some gigs for some extra cash. I am pretty sure I can still rock, although I may have to keep a chair and some ben-gay close to my piano. I have also considered dusting off my real estate license and trying to do some rentals. I was pretty good at that when I worked with Jackie Veri. I even sold a condo! I have always lived beyond my means, and now I am in the same flimsy mortgage boat that many of us are in.

Some changes I don’t like so much are out of state drivers on cell phones speeding through pedestrian crosswalks, while said pedestrian is half way across. Seems to be more of these banana heads all the time. And if you beep at them to show your displeasure at their careless disregard for law and safety, they usually flip you half a peace sign.

Another not so wonderful change that has occurred is that my new mustache is very grey. I wonder why it doesn’t match my hair? I look like a cross between Don Amece (Cocoon, Trading Places) and Tony Orlando (before he went on the Slim Fast diet). But with the changing of the season, I have vowed to take longer walks with the dog, hit the gym more and eat less (ok, and try not to lie as much).

I wish we didn’t have to wait so long for the weekend. Thankfully Spring is right around the corner, bringing with it a fresh new start, full of hope. As a matter of fact, I’m full of it right now.

I guess I just want to be a kid again – with no responsibilities, no bills, with parents who used to fix everything for me. Yes, I have changed into my parents, and I am quite happy about that. I am half mom and half dad. Today I will pay bills, dust and cook a boiled dinner – later on I will slap on some Old Spice, eat the boiled dinner and then watch TV.