You Are Old

There were 10 of us. Dusk had settled into the living room of an AirBnB we had rented in Asheville, NC. The TV glowed, March Madness, but the sound was low to allow for our usual yammering. We were hating on Hokas. Some of us. 

Blame me for the mud slung at the puffy technicolor sneaker that has flushed through the footwear market like a fungus. Over the past decade, I battled plantar fasciitis twice, first on the left foot, then the right, each requiring a healing campaign that lasted years and featured nearly every treatment available, from the obvious icing (or heating) to electric shock therapy and ultimately acupuncture.

Both of my podiatrists had recommended Hokas as a “great shoe.”

Everyone should have a physical therapist as a friend. I’ve got two, upstanding people, real professionals, and they are always more than generous with advice. Matt is the maverick, the explorer, the challenger of conventional theories. His disgust for Hokas, and other high-cushion sneakers, is palpable.

Which is why we were talking about arch support and toe boxes and muscle strengthening and, ultimately, zero drop shoes and their superiority to Hokas and their like.

“You guys sound old,” said someone who is old.

We are all old. Older. Aging. We are bald, silver whiskered, chunky, cough-ridden. We groan, amble, wheeze, and groan still some more when we bend or stand, get in or out of a car…basically, when we move. 

We have had cancer, brain bleeds, pulmonary embolisms, heart bypass surgery, hip replacements. We are down a man, an 11th who was supposed to be with us in that Asheville living room. He died last year, alcoholism. His absence is massive.

He started the Esprit da Funk, our fantasy baseball league, in 1997. This March draft was the beginning of our 29th season. For the 27 non-pandemic-soiled seasons, we gathered, IRL before that became something you actually had to point out. The inaugural event took place in Lake Tahoe, where we could ski or play golf when we weren’t intoxicating ourselves. None of us had kids. Getting together was easy. We were young.

Twenty-nine years later, we’re still at it, our most anticipated weekend of the year also now serving as this undeniable marker of time, a clear manifestation of aging. Metamucil biscuit wrappers — two flavors! — litter the countertops. Where grocery runs used to include carbs and trans fats almost exclusively, we now have bananas, clementines, grapes, quite a bit of natural fiber. One of us has become a smoothie evangelist, having shed dozens of pounds in a successful effort to control his diabetes.

We mock Matt the PT, his absolute confidence in alternate approaches to physical health and the steady supply of YouTube videos that buttress those approaches. Go back a decade or more, he could get a little out of control; I have a distinct memory of him joyously hauling cases of Red Bull and bottles of vodka into a ski chalet for one particular draft where sleep wasn’t easy to come by.

Now he’s more likely to be first to bed. That leaves him well prepared to answer our questions about our weak-ass glutes or tight lower back. Many of us leave the draft with a stretch to incorporate in the constant battle against our bodies’ relentless deterioration.

I couldn’t be more grateful for this dumb game that brings us together every year. I’ve gotten past the embarrassment of explaining that, yes, I play fantasy baseball. I pretend to be a manager, analyze the free agent list for untapped talent, negotiate trades. It’s all so ridiculous and delightful.

Early on, we decided that champions should earn a yellow blazer (I still have mine, purchased to celebrate my victory with Ed in 2001). Each year’s last place finisher must wear the lovely scarlet Bottom of the Barrel Beret during the draft. Our wig collection has thinned out a bit, but a few still make the trip each spring. There has been a wrestling singlet at a draft, purely for the sake of absurdity.

The jackassery glides alongside the realities of the past three decades, running the gamut from weddings, babies born, graduations galore, college…all the way over to divorces, job losses, and all the aforementioned health scares.

Year 27 was tough, as the depths of John’s drinking clarified for many of us. His problem hadn’t been a secret, but he joined us in Washington, DC, in a particularly shocking state. Our three days were colored by his compromised condition and our concern, but the pleasure of being together got us through.

He went downhill immediately after the draft and was in rehab by early summer. John seemed to really try to get sober, but the booze was a fucking demon for him. He died the following winter.

Which left us the lesser, and left me with a harsh realization: how many drafts are in the future?

I want to do this draft every year because these are my favorite people and my favorite days. So the math:

I’m being conservative. When do even a couple of us decide getting on a plane really sucks? I plan to be active well past 70, and I will see some of these homies until we can’t leave home anymore.

But this is the deal. Time is precious. That used to be a platitude, like The grass is greener, lacking real meaning. Today, it feels like a warning.

We are not elderly, not yet. But in the eyes of some, maybe even ourselves, we are old. Old as fuck.