By Tim Sanders

A couple of weeks ago I experienced an event which made me pause and reflect. (I’ve been reflecting a lot since I started losing my hair.) The event was my 60th birthday. It had been my sincere hope that since I didn’t accomplish much in my 59th year, friends and relatives would let me repeat it. No such luck. Poor performance notwithstanding, I was socially promoted to 60 in order to make room for the hordes of other old guys nipping at my heels.

When a 60-year-old looks back over his life, trying to make sense of it, he often gets a terrific headache. I certainly did. I finally concluded that although I didn’t understand much about the world when I was 6, at age 60 I understood even less. So what, I asked myself, has my life amounted to?

WELL, I TOLD MYSELF, ON THE POSITIVE SIDE:

I have been married to the same woman for almost 40 years. I know this is a spectacular accomplishment, and in fact my wife often shakes her head, sighs, and sometimes even weeps for joy when I remind her of it.

I’ve done my part in raising two sons to adulthood. And I have gone that extra mile and shown them, by example, exactly what they need to avoid to become financially successful and deliriously happy. "See how Daddy did that? Don’t do it that way."
I have never eaten tofu, sushi, snails, or June bugs.

I’ve never watched a single episode of Oprah, or South Park.

I’ve never been involved in organized crime, unless voting counts.

And I’ve never participated in dog fighting. (I did once have a minor altercation with a neighbor’s cat who tried to use my leg as a scratching post, but it wasn’t much of a fight. I was disqualified in the first round for kicking.)

ON THE OTHER HAND:

I never realized my childhood ambition of riding the range with Hopalong Cassidy.
I also never fulfilled my more mature, reasonable adolescent fantasy of scoring the winning touchdown on the last play in the Rose Bowl on New Years Day, catapulting the University of Michigan to a national championship, while a quivering, scantily clad Sophia Loren shook her magnificent pom poms at me from the sidelines.

I never learned the Freddy or the Hully Gully.

I never found a cure for cancer.

I never even found a cure for the summertime blues.

So much for world-shaking accomplishments. I have, however, learned three really important things since turning 60:

1. Dachshunds are not the brightest canines on the planet. We recently purchased a new china cabinet, and as soon as our dachshund Maggie spotted it in the dining room, she went into her terror mode, which includes seriously raised hackles and vociferous barking. She believed it was about to pounce on her, suck her into its glass stomach, and digest her in full view of the rest of the dining room furniture. "Look Maggie," I said, "I know it’s big, but I’ll guarantee you that you could outrun it." She finally made peace with the china cabinet, but she still gives it plenty of room, just in case it’s only playing possum.

2. There is a cure for pain which does not involve medication. The other night as I lay in bed, I got one of those pains that 60-year-olds often get. It was a sharp pain in my right foot, just below my big toe. It felt like somebody was stabbing me with an ice pick, and it made me sit bolt upright. As soon as I got hold of my foot, the pain stopped. Then it started again, stopped, and a few moments later it resumed with vigor. During one of my painless moments, I noticed that my left foot was starting to itch. The more I thought about it, the more it itched. Soon my left foot was itching so much that I didn’t even notice the pain in my right foot. I remembered that when I injured my knee several weeks ago, the leg pain distracted me from that abominable carpal tunnel syndrome in my right arm. Aha!

"Hey Marilyn," I said, "I think I’m on to something here where pain is concerned."
She asked me to be quiet and let her go back to sleep.

I did, but nonetheless, lying there quietly, I worked on my theory, which was that if you want to get rid of pain, and would prefer not to medicate yourself senseless, all you have to do is give yourself another, more uncomfortable pain somewhere else, and the distraction will make you forget the original pain. I haven’t worked out all the details yet, but the Sanders Pain Remedy would involve no costly potions or pills–only an inexpensive, reusable ball-peen hammer.

"Ooooh, my toe is killing me!"

"Hold still Bob, Dr. Tim’s got just the thing."

"Hey, that’s a hammer. HEY, HEY, HEY–YEEOWTCH, MY HEAD!"

"Now how’s your toe, Bob?"

"Uh ... which toe?"

3. The apocalypse is right around the corner. CNN recently hosted the Democratic YouTube debate. I watched as much as I could stand, and realized that the very same goobers who vote regularly on that insipid "America’s Got Talent" show were posing the questions to the candidates. It turned into a regular Looney Tunes Revue. Barack Obama performed his little Daffy Duck calypso dance, Dennis Kusinich did a crowd pleasing impression of Miss Prissy the lonely spinster hen, and Hillary donned her Foghorn Leghorn suit and did a fine juggling act, using balls she’d borrowed from Bill. Shortly after my 60th birthday, the fine line between political discourse and trash TV had been obliterated. Anderson Cooper had morphed into Jerry Springer, several Democrats had advanced to the next round, and the Republicans were waiting in the wings.

Like I said, the world made very little sense to me when I was 6, and it makes even less sense now. I’m getting another headache, so if you’ll excuse me, I must go get my hammer and whack myself in the kneecap.