Old Cowboy, Young Eyes

One of the biggest daily battles a man fights after 60 years of breathin', is cynicism. By the time  he's that long in the tooth he has mostly seen and heard it all. The "latest and the greatest” doesn’t shine with the same gleaming luster to an old cowboy as it does to some folks. After a breathless presentation to him of the newest and most remarkable wonder of the day, you may see him nod his head, look up from under his hat, and say something like… “Well”, or “uh huh”. Over the many years, he has adopted a philosophy of “I’ll wait and see”.  
 

The fastest way to see old cowboy cringe is for a politician (or for that matter, most anyone) to say “trust me”.  To him, “trust me”, being interpreted, means “you lose”. He gives everything a second look …at the least. After 60 years, old guys (and gals)  have seen so many unsinkable ships sink, so many hard and fast rules go soft, so many unbeatable records shattered, and so many promises broken that it’s, well... just dang hard to see or hear anything that you can just instantly embrace and accept. 

Eggs are good for you, no, eggs are bad for you, well now,  eggs are good for you. Old cowboys have seen, time and again, the best new medical cure-alls pulled off the market because they were actually making people worse, and the pharmaceutical company who made them covered up the facts. A thousand of the latest catch-phrases and buzz words have come and gone. And time and space doesn’t allow a list of the decades of government promises, plans, and fixes that were supposed to be such a phenomenal help to America, and how that worked out for them. 

 Wait and see. Show an aging man the 'latest and greatest' anything, and he’ll just nod. If you study his eyes closely, you’ll read “We’ll see" in there somewhere. After six decades or more of livin' I suppose a man's earned the right to be skeptical.  In fact, when you see everything through old cautious doubting eyes, well, it can be down right paralyzing if you’re not careful. You hardly want to try or accept anything 'new and improved'. Know any 60+ year olds that still don’t own or even want a computer? Exactly. Time and experience has a way of making  some of us suspicious at every turn. Hard to impress an old set of peepers with much of anything.

That’s why I’m glad for the eyes of young folks. 

Young folks tend to be adventurous, optimistic, and accepting to a fault. They love new things and are often dazzled by them. They see things through the glass of possibility, not calculated probability. Time has not hardened them yet, and they are hopeful about almost everything. When I'm with my kids and grand kids I am compelled to see things with more promise and less doubting.
My oldest grandson would rather fish than eat...literally. When he asks me about the weather on a fishing day, and I sigh and say there's an 80 percent chance of rain, he'll just smile and say "Well, it may not rain here though." He is solidly focused on the 20 percent chance that it won't rain.

 I have a son-in-law who always drives to the front of the store, expecting to find a parking place close to the doors, no matter how packed the the parking lot is. Most of the time he just pulls right in to an open spot. Once, we were in St.Louis during a festival on the riverfront, the place was barely organized chaos. We were trying to get to the park at the base of the Arch. Cars were parked a mile away. I would have said " Forget it" and moved on. Nope, not him. He drives past block after block after block of parked cars and pulls up the steps right in front of the Arch... just as a car pulls out of a space. He slides right in just like it was to be expected. For him it is. I'd a bet a months pay you couldn't get within 3 blocks of the place. Old eyes vs. young eyes.

My grandsons get excited and enthusiastic about some things that long ago became common place to me. When I am with them, however, I am caught up in the way they see things, and I can't help but have a renewed sense of wonder. Did a moon ever shine so bright, or look so wondrous as when a toddler discovers that lunar orb for the first time? Is an eagle ever as magnificent in flight as it is when seen with a youngster who is experiencing the sight in wide-eyed excitement? Old eyes can relive the wonder of the birth of a new colt, or calf...or child. Young folks can peel the film of time from an old cowboys eyes, and allow him to see things, and think things, in a fresh way again.

Maybe its the balance of experience and expectancy that we need. Optimism, with a healthy dose of realism, just might melt away a little of an old mans cynicism. Lifes experiences can make us wary  and jaded after many years. It's a good thing we keep bringing young people into the world to propel us forward, or we could become and remain stagnant. 

  I think that maybe we old cowboys could see things with less skepticism, less wariness, and with perhaps just a tad bit more enthusiasm  ...if we're willing to take a look at things through a pair of younger eyes.