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Imrem: The journey continues past 70

The real-life 70s show has a new cast member.

Yes, me. I didn't even have to read for the part. The passage of time hired me after screen-testing my wrinkles.

Seriously, seems like just last year that I wrote about turning 40 years old; an hour ago about turning 50; a half-hour ago about turning 60.

Last week I turned 70 but couldn't whine about it in print because injuries to Derrick Rose and Patrick Kane took precedence.

The back-to-back bulletins were more newsworthy than the outbreak of World War III and a cure for the common plague, much less than me.

The good news on that day was that even at my age I was healthier than a couple of 26-year-old sports studs.

The flip side is that when I started in this racket I was younger than baseball managers and now I'm older than U.S. presidents.

This aging thing sure is an interesting journey.

Not long ago my buddies and I would talk about sports and supermodels; now we talk about the history of the prostate gland and Janet Yellen.

So many of our guys have passed — including Ozmo, P.A., Spike, Zeke, Head and Jimmy Bids — we toast them and maybe down deep wonder, “Why them instead of us.”

We also reassure each other with fantasies like the Toby Keith lyric, “I ain't as good as I once was, but I'm as good once as I ever was.”

A sports writer especially can be reflective after he evolves from when he could be an NFL player's younger brother, then could be his older brother, then could be his father, then could be his grandfather.

Sometimes when coaches, general managers and owners don't heed my advice, I'd like to point out that I was their age but they were never mine.

Ah, what the heck, they still wouldn't listen, would they?

Phil Emery still wouldn't have hit delete before sending that dumb contract proposal to Jay Cutler. Tom Thibodeau still wouldn't understand that he has to grow a mustache if he wants to win a championship in Chicago. The Cubs still wouldn't have won a World Series during 1½ of my lifetimes.

With age you can take comfort in knowing that there always will be a next general manager, a next coach with facial hair, a next year.

You also can take comfort in knowing that all you need is a woman you love to throw you a birthday party and old, uh, make that longtime friends to show up bearing gifts.

Still, federal law mandates that I compile a bucket list of things I would like to do while still around.

• Live long enough to shoot my age in golf now that 70 already surpasses my IQ.

• Get over my chronic crush on Charlize Theron.

• Sleep through one entire night and stay awake through one entire baseball game.

• Rub our dog Bosun's tummy to the point where for a change he doesn't want it rubbed anymore.

• Eat grits with my hands and throw the leftovers at the nearest politician.

• Fake humility when I receive an Emmy, Grammy and Oscar in the same year.

• Burp the lyrics to all of the Billboard Top Forty.

• Take a helicopter ride with Brian Williams and survive to tell lies about it.

• Call Saul.

• Ask Barack Obama and George W. Bush how to overcome my mistakes to win a second 70-year term.

• Finally, sing karaoke along with more of Toby: “I ain't as good as I once was … my how the years have flown … but there was a time back in my prime … when I could really hold my own.”

OK, now I don't feel more than three days older than 69.

mimrem@dailyherald.com

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