Old Men Gathering

Just  getting  on  with  it, in  spite  of  the  aches

So, as we usually do, we attended a gathering of collectors in the latter part of March.

We’re part of a national collectors’ club, and this was the annual general meeting: not to be missed. I’ve been attending them regularly since 1962.

As it has been previously on a number of occasions, this year it was held in Turangi, a location not necessarily known as one of the nation’s leading convention centres, but if you’re someone who belongs to a slightly different group of collectors or a special enthusiasts’ organisation it’s actually a very pleasant, inexpensive and comfortable place to gather. It’s also nice and central.

There are several good motels, each with an adequate dining facility, the meals are good, the service smiling, and the prices sufficiently realistic to come again tomorrow night. We both thoroughly enjoyed it, as we have on previous visits.

We collectors started gathering on the Thursday night – well, a few of the early-bird enthusiasts did, with the bulk trickling in during Friday morning. Friday night was an enjoyable mix of laughter, good food, fine wine, excellent company, and catching up with old comrades from around the country. Saturday morning fair hummed with the excitement of buying, selling, trading, admiring, lusting after, disappointments at missing a bargain by a whisker or five minutes as the case may be. And, of course, lots more chatter and catch-up and warm handshakes with long-established friends who hadn’t been seen for maybe 12 months. Perhaps as many as 70 blokes – and the occasional lady, it must be said – all crammed into a local hall to enjoy the “goodies” either displayed or offered for sale or trade.

The hall had been set up on the Friday morning, almost exclusively by more senior members of the organisation. They were those who, being semi-retired or fully retired, had manipulated time schedules to ensure they were there a day or so early, before the “main event” properly got under way. Several dozen trestle tables needed to be carried out of storage, folded open and set up, and scores of stacked chairs had to be unstacked and set around. It all took time and a good deal of energy.

And the interesting thing was that virtually all the guys who did this work were old enough to be Gold Card holders and beyond. Almost all of us were suffering from some sort of major or minor medical or physical ailment – high blood pressure, stroke disability, diabetes, sore or aching shoulders, backs, hips, knees, ankles, arthritic hands or elbows. Occasionally you’d see someone wince as an angle or a weight caught them off-guard, or there’d be a noticeable but unremarked limp here and there, or a deliberately slow move, and just now and then an almost suppressed grunt of pain.

But no-one whinged about “their problems”. Most of us had suffered greater or lesser surgery. Hips, knees, ankles had been replaced; others were hanging out for imminent replacement operations. No-one complained. Everyone got on and did what they could – lifting, pushing, lining up, making everything neat and tidy, and there wasn’t a single “I can’t do that” from anyone.

It’s one of the special things I like about getting older. We “wrinklies”, or at least the vast majority of us, are not much into the “gripe and groan” orchestra. Instead, we seem to have this sort of hard-nosed mentality of “do it; it’s not a problem,” or “Yes, of course it hurts … and what? It’s been like that for three years and I’m still alive!” And we slog into it. It may take a little longer, but it gets done, whatever it is, and it gets done properly.

Those of us who are part of the during-the-war kids or post-war baby-boomers almost invariably grew up in households with parents who had lived through the 1930s’ world-wide depression and then the fears and deprivations of World War Two. Often there were grandparents in the home or close by, and they had lived through the horrors of World War One and the next two miseries as well. So there was a great deal of austerity and frugality and pragmatism in the households and out on the farms. The realities of life were harsh and real and right there in front of you. Every last scrap of food was utilised in the home, along with old clothes being mended again and again; paper bags, newspapers, buttons, pieces of string, empty jam jars all were saved and recycled; and out on the farms, bent nails and staples were put in old jam tins for straightening in the shed on a wet day. Old posts and battens were stored behind the shed for re-use somewhere, sometime. Pieces of wire, boards from broken gates, large tins that once contained canned peaches: all were stored in the shed in case there was a future use for them. And very often there was. It saved buying a new one, whatever it was.

And along with it, we kids went barefoot to school, we made our own toys and we played simple, exuberant games outside such as tree-climbing, building huts, damming creeks, collecting acorns for the pigs. We were also required to assist with chores around the place – bringing in the firewood for the stove or lounge-fire; feeding the chooks; taking the cows away to the night paddock; digging out thistles and ragwort; helping bring the hay-bales in before the rain came.

Thus, we learned the value of things, and along with it we learned that many things can be reused, sometimes several times. But as well, we learned to just get on with it – it needs doing so we’d better do it.

And that’s how it was among these older blokes down in Turangi. The place had to be set up, and the oldies may have taken a little longer, but they got it done. In the process there was good cross-chat, banter, badinage and leg-pulling, and it was a great deal of fun. Nobody griped about aches or pains, even though among some they were obvious to see. We simply accepted that most of them were at least as badly off as we were, and some plainly worse off. We made allowances for those worse off, we helped them more, or quietly manoeuvred to take over the heavier tasks so they didn’t have to do them.

During the formalities of the weekend we held a standing remembrance time of silence for one of the older club members who had passed away just a week or so earlier, and there were sombre faces among many of us. “Old Jim” had been a stalwart for many years, and his sometimes “grumpy old man” stance invariably evaporated at these gatherings, replaced by a warm, rich, quietly chatty senior member who was always worth talking to, and whose long historic knowledge of “things” generally was invariably good to tap into. His presence was, indeed, missed.

It is thus with many such groups of older folk. We’re not afraid to get on with the job if there’s a job to do, and we sometimes have smart ways of doing things – because we’ve been around the block a couple of times and have gained skills in how lots of things are done with a minimum of fuss. As well, we’ve grown used to coping with aches and pains and shortness of breath and lack of physical strength or durability, and we accept we may have to take two or three bites at the task to get it completed.

And when it’s completed, does anyone care that it took another five minutes or half an hour or two days? Not in my house it doesn’t, and I don’t think it’s a problem in most other places either.

So we had a really good weekend in Turangi, and I came home having bought a little and sold a little and seen a lot, and laughed and drank good wine and eaten good food and enjoyed some of the best of company. Yeah, sure, my shoulder still hurts and the lower calf muscle in my left leg is still a real pain, and my ankles are still a little swollen.

Well, I’ve done my three-score years and ten, and I reckon there’s more ahead yet. There’d better be, because I’ve still got lots to do. So let’s get on with it.

Ah, yes. What were we collecting?

Not everybody’s cup of tea, I must admit, but to us “munitionologists”, collecting firearms’ cartridges is an everlasting fascination. It’s a bit like stamp collecting, just a tad heavier.

Kingsley Field is an author and journalist. He has published two illustrated volumes of his columns and is now working on Volume III. They can be purchased by contacting him at kingsley@accuwrite.co.nz