"Old" Got the Most Mentions

In the Baltimore Sun article by Paul West, "McCain has diluted his rare reputation," there's mention of a Pew Research Center poll that asked voters to sum up McCain in one word.

"Old" got the most mentions.

Old is fine in my neighborhood. I've barely got any friends under 80. There are those who come to check on Grandma Slump, and most of them are young, but I don't know that they really want to be friends. They tend to look at me askance, like 'Why don't you grow up and move away? You're not getting any younger yourself. And here you sit, mooching off your Grandma's Social Security for your livelihood. Living in her house. Vegetating. We social-services-types have no use for an old hayseed who doesn't get out and get a job but lives only as a parasite on an old lady's tender mercies. Sure, she is your grandma, and she did allow you to live here after high school, but that was meant to be temporary. Who knew you'd glom on like a barnacle and still be here after decades had passed? Who does that? You're very creepy. You're a creepy old man who might be a clown when no one's looking, for all we know.'

They've never actually said any of that. So maybe it's all in my mind. I might be losing it, you know, up there. Cuckoo time. That's what age does. And while I'm not in her head, who knows what kind of la-la goes on in Grandma's mind? Swatting for flies that aren't there. I've seen that so much, it's like a nervous tic, it's hard not to do yourself -- there goes one. No, wait, another false alarm...

I'm not for him -- I've mentioned that before -- but I hope John McCain doesn't have any trouble with being so old. And that people will give him a break, until he does or says something completely nuts. I'll recognize it when it happens.