On Blue Collar Old Guys Who Rock, and Being Too Old to Slow Down

Old for This Sh*t: How to Take Your Life Back from an Ageist Society

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Thanks to a great response from a fellow vet, a chance to share a terrific quote

The other day I was discussing the issue of blue collar workers with a friend. Movies have long made ugly fun of the plumber with a butt crack. Comedies featured idiot cable guys and janitors and anyone who came home with dirty nails and who might have smelled of sweat.

Horrors. What loser would marry such losers, right?

On one hand, some of those workers might have made a sexy calendar and be worthy of the female gaze, but not for long. HELL NO we wanted rich guys, white collar boys with fat paychecks. Hollywood made sure that anyone with a brain avoided any kind of trade work whatsoever.

Who the hell wants to be mocked, vilified and publicly lambasted by Hollywood?

So the trades have taken it in the butt(crack) if you will. Most of the folks that my home warranty brings to my house to fix the plumbing are older than I am at 72. They tell me there’s nobody coming up. The trades pay well, and it takes brains to figure out complex issues around HVAC, installing hardware, and troubleshooting issues.

These are not stupid people. Like any other career, there is an arc; the not-so-bright are at one end. At the other are people like my buddy Paul up in Spokane, whose HVAC company is begging him to come back because they can’t find workers. He retired, and while he’s bored, he doesn’t want to train kids who can’t deal with the physical demands of the labor.

Paul and I met at a Spokane gym back in 1998 and have been good friends since. He’s very bright. He got his hands dirty, came home smelling of sweat.

Not what a fine-upstanding, upwardly-mobile, self-respecting girl wants, right?

That’s the problem. We have relegated good people to the dustbin because they actually work for a living.

It also means that such men also have a hard time dating. Match.com and other sites can be brutal when women want money and all the trappings. As someone who aged out of Match years ago, it feels the same to me as someone who no longer earns the male gaze due to age. Men who work out like I do want women 18-35. Their age? 58-75.

Will you just please fucking grow up. That goes for both sides of this equation.

So a Substacker, in response to a recent article of mine, sent me such a terrific response that I had to share it. In it he shows why men like him are a catch, have always been a catch, and we women have too often been missing it. The same way that men who chase uber-young ass are missing it, but that’s another article.

First, please read this from Substacker

Bill Vann

Quote used with permission, lightly edited

I absolutely love this post!! I feel fortunate to have fallen into the “up before dawn” rhythm at an early age. In my thirties. That was a time of significant trials for me and not a real positive start. But being outside at that hour changed me.

The night routine has shifted around over the years often based on my lifestyle at the time but never will I miss out on those spiritual moments of predawn beauty. It's magic. Now, though, it's to bed about 10 and never up later than 4. It's perfect for my alone lifestyle.

I've struggled with a few health things like most do. Cataracts, small bouts of melanoma, arthritis, dental stuff, etc.

As a 75 yr old I do respect my fellow Boomers who take charge of their lives, so at 70 I decided to teach high school. Funny how that works. No real deep reason, just seemed like the thing to do and am so happy that I did. I began an education in teaching and admire and am so impressed with the people that always knew teaching was their passion. They deserve a lot of credit.

Took up scuba diving at 69 and found being in that pressurized, quiet, peaceful environment with the beauty of those creatures and their underwater lives is an introverts paradise. I crave the spiritual connection with those creatures. Especially the sharks (they are not dumb eating machines).

Anyway, for a blue collar, not formally-educated man, I feel my spiritual and natural life is exquisite. I camp, hike and car-travel to beautiful places.

I've never been to Europe or the Galapagos or Peru or St. Petersburg or Romania and probably never will, but I still see wondrous things.

Snow at the Grand Canyon, overflowing waterfalls in NC, gorgeous, unique sunrises and sunsets everywhere, so many stars that I don't even recognize the sky, and on and on.

Get off your butts, Boomers. Put down your phones. Get up before dawn and walk your quiet neighborhood. I can attest to an beautiful, fulfilled life after 60 and 70 without being rich.

I want to live forever, although, it would be nice not to live it alone. Lol (author bolded)

Bill underscores for me some of the challenges we create for ourselves when we cannot see people with so many blinders on. I read this piece with so much joy. What a gift this guy has to offer a potential partner.

He’s engaged, active, working, exploring, and being in life while so many are glued to their screens.

He lives a full and joyful life, appreciates what he has and what he sees. He juggles his fair share of challenges but who doesn’t?

Why do we HAVE to have certain things in a partner? Why do the external trappings such as money and fame (or whatever) count more than character and values?

I can’t speak for anyone else, but Bill’s last comment really struck a chord. Over the course of my life I likely rejected any number of otherwise perfectly fine partners who didn’t fit my picture of what I was “supposed” to have.

While these days I am no longer in the market for a variety of reasons, the way I see it, we end up forcing ourselves into the prison of loneliness when we only see potential mates through a prism of what someone is going to do for us, not the kind of joy you can have together despite the circumstances.

Values and character will always and forever be more essential than the external trappings of a perfect face, body, big bank account. Ask any couple who has made it fifty years, who have watched their partners change over the decades.

What remains when the face and body are gone are character, humanity, values, love, humor. We need all of those as we age.

My friend

Jim the Geek

knows, a man who married his childhood sweetheart. They are closing in on eighty after a lifelong love affair that never dimmed.

You and I may say we want that lifelong marriage. How many of us have spent decades looking for the wrong things, and in the process, lost our shot at the lifetime part of it? Are we really “settling,” if we accept someone who can’t put us in an 18,000 square foot mansion but who can make us laugh uproariously no matter what?

The last guy I was so enamored with was gorgeous, muscular, smart. And he was a righteous, selfish, self-centered asshole who thought with his dick. So you will understand I am speaking to myself as well as all of us, when I point out the shallowness of our choices, and the pain we can cause ourselves and others when we don’t put values and character first.

Thanks to Bill for a lovely view into his life, and the inspiration to share his wisdom. I’m sure Bill has asshole moments like we all do, but overall, I suspect a lot of women would appreciate his company when he heads out star-gazing.

I hope you find that partner, Bill.

Heartfelt thanks to Bill for the inspiration. This is for all the guys (and women) who chose honest hard work, whose willingness to come home covered with grease has greased the world for all of us, and who deserve love like everyone else. And it’s for all the good men and women who chose them, married them and love them still.

The cost of putting limitations on love is high. Let’s do better.

Photo by Nathan Jennings on Unsplash

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