A Horny 70-year-old Columnist Reminisces Job in the Navy

 and at the Sheriff Office and Now Tells of Flirting

with all the Sexy Baristas at Starbucks

By Jesse Jose

A Cup O' Kapeng Barako 

A couple of days ago, I was quietly watching TFC's (ABS-CBN) news program, "Bandila," when all of a sudden, Congressman Pakyaw, came on the screen swaggering as he entered the halls of Philippine Congress to attend one of its sessions, wearing a BRIGHT RED, body forming, long sleeve shirt with a bulaklakin tie . . .

First, I smiled, then I laughed, then I guffawed, then I felt sad for the Motherland. 

Then, Miss Philippines, Venus Raj, the winner of the "Miss Little Perfect" title in the recent Miss Universe Pageant, came on next and announced that she would like to run, too, as a congresswoman of her province of Be Cool Land.

Talking about having a MAJOR, MAJOR heart attack, I thought I was going to have one from laughing so hard. And, do y'all know that that famous phrase uttered by Ms. Raj in the recent Miss Universe Pageant is now in vogue to say among the so called "in na in" crowd of the Philippines? 

It's sad really. Kaya kulelat palagi ang Pilipinas sa pag-unlad because we have illiterate clowns getting elected as lawmakers of the land.  Heck, even the country of Vietnam, totally destroyed by a war not too long ago, had surged ahead and surpassed the Philippines in progress . . .    

Okay, enough of that.

ON BRISTOL PALIN: Have y'all seen the ABC show, "Dancing With The Stars" this Monday and Tuesday?  I was curious on how Bristol Palin would fare?  I like her, you see. So, I watched the show with interest.  I always go for the underdog.  Imagine competing against those movie celebrities, athletes and performers like Jennifer Grey, who danced with Patrick Swayze in the movie, "Dirty Dancing."  Already, Ms. Grey is slated to win and that's not fair.  

Also, before the show, people, bloggers, that is, were so mean to Bristol. 

They said that she's a "slut."

That she's a "hootchie."

That she's "hillbilly bitch."

That she's a "super tramp" and an "unwed teenage mother of a bastard, whose father is a punk . . ."

And that she's a "gold digger," like her mother, Sarah, the former governor of Alaska, and as we all know, the running mate of Senator John McCain in the last presidential election against BHO.

And that "she's no celebrity" and "what is she doing in a show called 'Dancing With The Stars'"?

On and on, those mean bloggers went. There were some kind words for her, but they were few and far in between those cruel and vicious words they said about her.

So I came on and joined the blogging, and said:

"I hope Bristol wins!  She's THE show of this show.  She'll dance all the way to the very last day of the show . . . and she'll win!  Good luck, Bristol.  Go knock 'em dead, especially those ugly, hate mongers who said those ugly things about you. I'll be cheering for you.  Many will be cheering for you.  So, go, Bristol, go!"

A couple of the bloggers commented on my comment and said they they "agree" with me and that they are also "cheering" for Bristol. But one called me an "idiot." Can't win them all, I suppose.

Anyway, did you see that wiggle that Bristol did?  Hmmmm.That was a winning wiggle, I think.  A little more practice and little more weight off her, she'll dance all the way to the "finals" of the show, and hopefully she'll beat that old girl of "Dirty Dancing."  Well, old man David Hasselhoff of the TV series, "Knight Rider" and "Baywatch" from a long time ago, has already been eliminated.  So there. 

O N OLD AGE: Talking about old age, I celebrated my 70th birthday this month. I don't feel old though. And I don't think old. But I am thinking of moving to North Dakota.  According to Ms. Froma Harrop, a syndicated columnist of The Providence Journal, North Dakota – especially in a little town named Ashley – has one of the highest proportions of residents age 100 and older in America. Its older residents enjoy longer and healthier lives than in most parts of the country.

She said, this not a case of younger people having left the state. The proportion of people 65 and above is higher in Florida, Pennsylvania and West Virginia than in North Dakota, but they are more likely to die before 80.

And the SECRET she said of their longevity is that the people of North Dakota enjoy the two things most associated with healthy aging: strong social ties and exercise. In Ashley, said Miss Harrop, if an older resident doesn't show up at a family restaurant where the old folks usually hang out, friends go look for that person. 

The town's older population, she said, is weighted with retired wheat farmers and ranchers who've accumulated a lifetime of hard physical work. When they retire, they continue gardening.

IN THE NAVY: Well, I am fully retired now myself and I love gardening. When I was in the Navy, I worked my butt off, too, just like a wheat farmer.  My first job in Uncle Sam's Navy was a "kargador," a job where I had to haul boxes of frozen meat weighing 50 pounds or more from a huge freeze box of the aircraft carrier I was on at that time, to the galleys (that's a kitchen) of the ship. And that freeze box was located seven ladders down (that's equivalent to seven stories of a building) in the bowels of the ship.  And I had to make trips down there and up loaded with boxes of frozen meat on my back, like a mule, like 10 or 15 times a day.  But I was young then and very strong. I could handle anything thrown at me and I could do anything . . .  I did that kind of work for five years.

Then I was promoted to dishwasher, where I had to wash loads and loads of plates and heavy pots and pans in a steamy room. Then I became a cabin boy where I had to make hundreds of Navy officers's bunk beds.  All these jobs were hard physical work.

Then I became a photo-journalist, where I had to jump from one ship to another, lugging my camera, and climbed steep ship ladders looking for stories . . . and then run to a typewriter to write those stories.  That was very physical work, too.

Then I retired from the Navy. But I wasn't done yet in doing physical work. I became a cop in Florida, where I had to chase after "jits" and wrestle them down to the ground, handcuff them, pick them up bodily to haul their asses off to jail. And that was hard physical work, I tell ya! 

Yes, I've had a lifetime of hard physical work in my heydays, just like those retired North Dakota wheat farmers that Ms. Harrop had written about in her recent column. 

Miss Harrop also said that the rural Plains offer other advantages to a healthy old life: clean air and reduced stress; less traffic and less hurry.  And that exercise and social networking are clearly the keys to quantity and quality of late life.

Well, I live in a place called Lakeland Hills, Auburn, Washington.  And here in my neighborhood, it's very quiet and there's no traffic.  And there's a Starbucks coffee shop a couple of miles from my house, where in between my gardening, I would usually walk, to and fro, to say hello to neighbors, old farts like me getting juice up on caffeine and flirting with all the young and pretty baristas that work there.

Heck, perhaps, I don't need to move to North Dakota after all.  I've got a lot of friends here in Auburn.  I am a member of our church's Knights of Columbus.  I am a lector and I sing in a newly-formed all-Filipino choir, named after the one and only Filipino saint, San Lorenzo Ruiz.

Editor’s Note: To read about Jesse Jose’s latest avocation as a choir member, please click on this link, A Friend Named Gerry, a Church Choir, a Carrot, an Egg, and a Cup of Coffee 

Y es, I am blessedly happy. And I thank the Lord that I've reached this ripe age happy and healthy . . . and horny, too, a few times a week.  Well, thanks to Viagra I can get it up and keep it up.  And I have this Kapeng Barako column, that acts as my bully pulpit and my soap box for laughter. And I have an indulgent, free-thinking editor/publisher to boot. 

So what more can an old man like me ask from life?  Well, perhaps, I'd like to live to over a hundred, just like those wheat farmers of Ashley, North Dakota.  I've earned my keep, too, just like them.  JJ