I was driving through the outskirts of town not long ago when I saw something that made me stop and ponder.  It was an old guy, (a “boomer” about my age actually), who had stopped alongside the road to smoke a cigarette.  He had thinning grey hair and a speckled beard.  In most respects he seemed to be a regular guy, the type you might see buying melons at Central Market or weed-whacking his side yard on a Saturday afternoon.

The irony of this scene however, was that this fellow was leaning up against an expensive, very-much-too-large motorcycle, full of chrome and fancy saddle bags.  He was scowling, dressed in a brand new pair of shiny, jet-black leather pants, with the requisite black Harley T-shirt and bandana.  About his body were festooned a variety of metal chains and objects of uncertain function. Instead of pulling off under a shady tree or in a pleasant spot to smoke his cigarette, he had chosen to do it out in the glaring sun, noise, dust and commotion of the shoulder of a busy street – “wearing his gun outside his pants”, as Willie Nelson once more or less wrote, “for all the world to feel.”

It was embarrassing.  For him and for me.

This was very obviously a rebel deeply immersed within an act of rebellion. 

But seeing him led to a deeper question that has plagued me for a number of years:  Where DO graying warriors go to rebel?  How do they express themselves and their art and their individuality?  How can they express all that has fermented within them for so many years without buying a Harley and wearing leather pants, or joining a “classics” band and dooming themselves to playing Jim Morrison, “Smoke on the Water” and “Johnny B. Goode” over and over again until they either have a coronary or simply pass out from boredom or exhaustion?

Do they set fire to their AARP cards?  Swill Metamucil in public?  Refuse to carry a cell phone?  Take a leisurely piss in a public place?  (That last one doesn’t really qualify as rebellion… chances are, they just can’t hold it any longer.) 

No, the truth of the matter is – if geezers were going to rebel, they should have done it thirty or forty years ago when it might have made a difference.

Rebelling is saying “no” because you’ve tired of “yes”; you have a better idea.  It is thumbing your nose at convention and doing it in the way that only you can.  To rebel is to be unique.  Buying a gaudy, expensive motorcycle just because you can doesn’t qualify as rebellion, and dressing up like some modern-day version of Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow doesn’t cut it either.  Those guys are a dime a dozen.    

The ultimate act of rebellion for a geezer may be to become a counterforce to the cell phonification and general dumbing down of society.  Spit in it’s face: Share what you know, share what you’ve done and learned.   Show the world that there’s a way to do it wrong and there’s a way to do it right.  Mentor or teach.

If that pathetic geezer alongside the road had really wanted to make a statement he would have bought a REAL motorcycle: one that whizzes along at a low grumble: just loud enough to sense the pitch of the engine, but quiet enough to hear the wet precision of a well-oiled chain snaking through the sprockets.   He would have bought some sturdy, sensible riding clothes and left the chains and metal ware home.  He might have taken someone with him – a young person - someone who has never been out on the open road, and shown them the thrill of bugs in their teeth and the breeze through their knees.  And most of all, he should have found a pleasant, shady, comfortable place to smoke that cigarette - a place where he can truly enjoy it.

Why?  Because he can.  He’s earned it.    

Photo Credits:

Marlon Brando

Old Man