Middle Age Melt: Aging Without Grace by Janet Pitler, illustrations by Bob D’Amico; © 2022; Norfolk, Virginia; ISBN 9781953-024985; 105 pages, $14.95.
SAN DIEGO – Stand-up comedians know that audiences will laugh at jokes made about the subjects which make them the most uncomfortable, including their body shapes, their sexual activity (or lack of it) and the infirmaries of age.
Janet Pitler, with a Jewish knack for self-deprecating humor, puts such material into 61 poems which Bob D’Amico illustrates with imaginative cartoons. The result: an opportunity for those of us who are aging (and who isn’t?) to laugh at ourselves – either in the quiet of our reading chair, or possibly reciting the poems aloud with our friends.
Stanzas from a few of the poems will give you an idea of the delight with which Pitler makes light of the many ailments accompanying aging.
In Eking Creaking, she writes:
My body started talking,
Speaking crackles, speaking creaks.
Heard the noise as I was walking,
There were loud and endless squeaks.
In Question of Digestion, we read:
“It’s a question of digestion,”
Said my stomach to my brain.
“Are you really going to eat that
Or do you think you could refrain?
“I haven’t had a chance yet
To digest what’s sitting here,
What’s swirling in the acid
Mixed with sausages and beer.
Topographic Errors is a tale of woe:
The layout of my body
Isn’t what it used to be
Those high and shapely mountains
Have succumbed to gravity.
My last selection comes from Ills, Pills and Mass Refills:
I go to see my doctor
More often now than not.
And my pharmacist has told me
I’m the best friend that he’s got.
I’ll leave it to others to read aloud the more risqué poems. There are several.
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Donald H. Harrison is editor emeritus of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com