Leave me alone, AARP

Fri, 25 Feb 2000 17:00:00 +0000

The envelope came late, a month after the big day. Somehow I thought I had eluded their gaze. But four days ago, when I got home from work, there it was, sitting on the dining room table, waiting for me.

"AARP," the return address said. "Membership Certificate and Temporary Membership Card Enclosed."

Busted.

I turned 50 in December. Friends who preceded me to that milestone had spoken of the day when the letter from the AARP arrived in the mail. They likened it to an unwelcome summons, a computer-generated siren song to a new life stage. In fact, in most cases, the letter preceded the actual event, like one of those early birthday cards
from an obsessive relative.

I guess AARP wants me to retire.

Well, I don't want to.

I imagine a desert, full of wandering, barrel-bellied men in funny
hats, plaid Bermudas, black knee-length socks and women wearing clothes the color of a sherbet rainbow. I don't want to retire. I don't want to be old. Or maybe what I don't want is to be considered old. My mother, who turned 82 this year, says she looks in the mirror and wonders, "Who is that old woman?"

My cancer time bomb

Tue, 20 Apr 1999 19:35:00 +0000

My first time was in our garage. I was 8. It was with one of my father's
Kents. At 12, I was already worrying over my weekly pre- and after-school consumption of a dozen Tareytons, Newports, Lucky Strikes
and other brands we lifted from our mothers', fathers' and older siblings'
packs. I don't remember liking the taste much, but I loved the rituals of smoking: tapping the butt end against the pack, striking the match, drawing in that first sulfuric drag and watching the milky stream of smoke leave my mouth and nostrils. Flicking the ash with my index finger, I felt sophisticated, in control and very grown-up.

It would take another seven years before Gore Vidal showed me the way to
freedom. At 19, I was up to two-and-half packs a day, (unfiltered Camels) when I came across Vidal's Playboy interview. For some reason, his sneer about smoking -- a "psychological crutch" -- leapt off the page. "Gore, you're right," I said and crushed out my last cigarette in an ashtray overflowing with butts.

Salon.com > Christopher Scanlan

Leave me alone, AARP

My cancer time bomb