BY JOHN MCLOONE

I’ve always felt I was a bit more mature than my driver’s license says I am.
I’m talking appearance, not actions.
I always looked older than my peer group growing up. It came in handy in my younger years when I’d throw on a tie I kept in my glove compartment to buy beer at the Stop-N-Go perhaps a year or two before I should have been allowed to. They obviously figured that the person before them buying the cheapest 12 pack they had was some successful young salesman. Either that or they didn’t care, and that’s probably really what the situation was.
Those were the days of when young folks could legally consume adult beverages at 18. Only once did the clerk look up and ask me for identification. I didn’t have any. Well, I did, but it wouldn’t have passed muster. I explained something to the effect of leaving it on my desk at my high profile sales job. He asked, “Are you 18?” A quick nod, and $4.82 later, and I was on my way.
In college, I could have perhaps passed for a professor, with my receding hairline. Most of the damage on the top of my head was done by the time I was 30, when I gave up on trying to have a hair style and just started buzzing it away every couple weeks.
I didn’t feel old ever. Well, I pretty much do now. But then, I felt like I could keep up with my kids, and they kept a pretty rigorous pace.
I do recall that every memory I have of my father he was what I would consider “old.” He wore black socks and dress shoes with shorts in the summer and referred to himself as the “old man.” I obviously inherited the aging early trait from him, minus the black socks.
A few years back, I went to visit my wife, who teaches second grade. I cleared security and poked my head in the door to say hello. She was in front of the room working her magic. One of the kids raised his hand. “Mrs. McLoone, your dad’s here!”
A few years back, I was in a national pharmacy chain looking for some sort of hair product for a daughter. I was searching the shelves, and a worker came over. “It’s up here,” he said, showing me where the hair regrowth medicine was.
Somewhere in there, I’ve embraced being the “old man.” One store I frequent has a senior citizen discount day every Wednesday. For several weeks in a row, the same checkout person asked if I qualified for the discount. After refusing it multiple times, I decided to embrace it. “Heck yes! Do you even have to ask?”
I’ve even earned a special title from my grandchildren. Somewhere along the line, I started being referred to as “Old Grandpa.”
I’ve been called a lot of things over the years, but that’s the title I’m most proud of.