Steve Moseley

Wait. What did we decide I was going to write today’s column about again?

Oh, yeah, now I remember; we were going to discuss memory loss and general cognitive decline. Specifically, mine.

This is a deeply personal issue, but I’m a self-deprecating ‘laugh at myself’ kinda guy, always have been.

By way of background there is dementia in my lineage. Oh, how my dad struggled with confusion before his demons were mercifully driven out at his passing. This big, strapping World War II Navy combat veteran was reduced at the end to a confused, frail, frightened bird. It was horrible. It broke our hearts. My mom said after he died, “The last thing Russell taught me is there really are things worse than death.”

And now, to her great frustration and our sadness, at 98 she struggles mightily to get her own thoughts and words to mesh as a resident of the secure dementia unit at a veterans home.

I find it increasingly difficult at 73 to conceal my own worsening slippage and for years have taken two (count ‘em, two) prescription pills a day trying to hold it off. Examples have become abundant, obvious and sometimes even weirdly entertaining. More on that later.

At first the frailty of age was an asset, one I played like a fiddle. Did I get your name wrong or forget it altogether? Did you notice me wandering a parking lot in obvious search of my vehicle or standing in the grocery store trying to conjure what I went there for in the first place? My response became easy: Shrug, grin sheepishly and mutter, “It’s hell to get old.”

The embarrassing truth is I suffered those exact same lapses in my 50s and 60s. The difference then? I could hide them; almost always catching myself in the nick of time. Lately, I deploy this ready-made ‘over the hill’ excuse disquietingly often.

But still, documentation of how this will inevitably end for me is inescapable. Remember that simple acuity test Trump was thumping his chest to have passed? Flunked it … twice. My fate is sealed by genetic predisposition alone, never mind what other short-circuits spark above these liver-spotted ears.

The old gray matter it ain’t what it used to be … and never will be again. But as people say when circumstances cannot be changed: It is what it is.

That said, do not cry for me. I’m a far shot from a goner, still able to do what I need to do and get where I need to get (praise God and the military for GPS technology).

I continue to mentor kids as a card-carrying volunteer Nebraska Game and Parks Commission certified youth fishing instructor and I still seem able to bang out news, sports, columns and even the odd ‘pedestrian’ photo, as Dewey Vanderhoff  of Cody arrogantly labeled my work a very long time ago. I also cling to youth as a proud habitual speeder, though the price of gas has even that guilty pleasure in peril. I even gave the beloved 1991, twin-entry turbo, mid-engine, two-seater, switchback-gobbling Toyota MR2 to son Aaron. That alone throws judgmental stability into question.

Why do I bring this up today? Very recently a pair of nerve-shattering incidents brought the certainty of my end into close focus.

The other day in nearby Grand Island we needed to visit our cellphone, TV and internet provider. The staffed office in GI is our only ‘human’ option since the corporate suits, protecting a mountainous bottom line no doubt, pulled the plug on their own staff and shuttered our local storefront.

I punched the address for Verizon in the GPS and drove straight there without mishap. Upon being greeted, I began to unload questions and a couple mild complaints. The nice fellow asked my name and said, “Let me find your account.” After what seemed a long time over the keyboard he began to look puzzled. That was the precise moment I finally (sheesh!) realized we aren’t a Verizon customer anymore. Tossed them overboard in favor of Spectrum years ago. Awkward.

Then, the death blow.

I was idling away a recent Sunday evening, enveloped by the out-sized recliner upstairs mindlessly (as will soon be obvious) surfing YouTube and dozing off. Meanwhile, HGTV, as always, prattled away on Good Wife Norma’s television. Much too late reality dawned; I had absent-mindedly missed going down to the man cave for that week’s episode of Yellowstone (GWN will not abide all the ‘F’ bombs). Missed it twice in fact. Infinitely worse, this was the cymbals crashing crescendo. The mid-season finale. This from a fellow who has endured full days and deep nights plugged into mind-numbing, full-weekend Yellowstone marathons more than a couple times. Can you imagine such a thing? So here I sit, cursed to twist in Yellowstone limbo until Lord knows when.

I told you it was serious but you didn’t believe me, did you? Well, fellow Yellowstone addicts, what have you to say now?