"I Am a Teenage Grandpa"

By Jerry Zezima

If you think your kids grow up fast, wait until you have grandchildren. I didn’t have to wait long for this revelation because my oldest grandchild is already a teenager.

If that weren’t enough, she and my four other grandkids are more mature than I am. It was true not only when I was their age — the youngest are 6-year-old twins — but, at 72, right now.

Thus have I discovered the fountain of youth: Immaturity. If you want to stay young, don’t grow up.

This means everyone else is getting old except me. That goes for my two daughters, the mothers of my grandchildren.

Every time you turn around, there’s another milestone, which is better than another kidney stone. I’ve had half a dozen of them.

My advice: Don’t turn around. And watch where you’re going.

But back to Lucky 13. I remember when I hit this landmark. At that age, only three things were important to me:

1) Sports.

2) Girls.

3) The Three Stooges.

Not necessarily in that order.

The day I became a teenager, my parents asked how I felt.

“I don’t feel any different,” I said, adding (to myself) that I was still the same dweeb I was the day before.

Then I went outside and threw snowballs (my birthday is in January) at cars.

Because I was the youngest kid in my class — the only time in my life that I had any class — I was 13 when I started high school.

On my first day, I got hopelessly lost, walking into the wrong classrooms and earning the snickers of the cool kids.

Every kid is teased — some, unfortunately, are bullied — in their teenage years. I found a way out of it: I was funnier than the other kids, who focused their jeers on my admittedly sizable proboscis.

My response: “My nose was this size when I was born. I couldn’t lift my head until I was 3 years old.”

It got big laughs. And it stopped the teasing. As a result, I became the class clown. It is an honor I wear proudly to this day.

I did a lot of dumb stuff when I was a teenager. Of course, I was young and stupid. I’m still doing a lot of dumb stuff, which means I’m now old and stupid. And because I’m a humor columnist, I’m actually getting paid for it.

Maybe I’m not so stupid after all.

I also was a teenager when I started college. I should have sued the people who made “National Lampoon’s Animal House,” the 1978 frat comedy starring John Belushi, for theft of intellectual property. If I won, I’d have to pay intellectual property tax.

That I graduated magna cum lager will give you some idea of my collegiate career.

As with my teachers in high school, where I was in the principal’s office so often that I could have been charged rent, my college professors couldn’t wait to get rid of me.

By then I was 21, my teenage years behind me, at least from the neck down. From the neck up, I continue to have the mind of a class clown.

My wife, Sue, who was my classmate in both high school and college, will verify it.

Now we have a teenage grandchild. It might make other grandparents feel old, but I have felt — for, ironically, the past 13 years — that you have to be young to be a grandparent. If you aren’t, being a grandparent will make you young again.

This explains why I have always been my grandchildren’s favorite toy.

So happy 13th birthday to my granddaughter, with lots of love from one teenager to another.

Copyright 2026 by Jerry Zezima

"Taking It to Heart"

By Jerry Zezima

It does my heart good to know that my heart is in the right place (right now it’s in my office, where I am, too) and that I don’t need open-heart surgery.

That’s why I was happy to have a heart-to-heart talk with a very nice ultrasound technician named Emily, who gave me an echocardiogram. It showed, among other things, that I am able to fire off dumb remarks in a heartbeat.

I had the test to see if my aortic aneurysm, which was discovered a year and a half ago, had grown to the size of a colorful balloon with cartoon hearts and the words “Get well soon!”

A cardiac surgeon said I needed an operation, but he called me the day before the scheduled surgery to say a scan showed the aneurysm wasn’t of sufficient size for such an invasive procedure after all. The news made my heart flutter.

“We can treat it with medication,” he said.

That includes, I like to think, red wine, which I consider over-the-counter heart medicine.

Still, I have to go for follow-up exams. The most recent one was the echocardiogram.

Accompanying me for moral support was my wife, Sue, a cardiac patient herself who has summoned the strength not only to keep me alive, but to rotate her eyeballs, multiple times a day, at my dumb remarks.

“Do you have to give me more than one cardiogram?” I asked Emily.

“No,” she replied. “Why?”

“Because,” I said, “it’s an echo.”

Both Emily and Sue rotated their eyeballs.

After I gave Emily the shirt off my back, she asked me to lie down on a padded sonography table.

“I am going to put stickers on your chest,” she said.

“Are they smiley stickers?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Those are extra.”

The stickers were connected to wires that made me feel like a car battery in need of a jump. They would allow Emily to monitor my heart rate and rhythm.

Then she instructed me to lie on my left side with my back toward her.

“Put your right arm on your right thigh,” Emily said. “And put your left arm under your head.”

“It sounds like I’m doing the Hokey Pokey,” I said.

“Without the music,” she added.

“Maybe I’ll fall asleep,” I said.

“Don’t snore,” said Sue, who is used to my overnight rumblings.

Emily used a wand (not magic because I didn’t disappear) to go over my chest, side, throat and stomach.

The result:

1) I had a heartbeat.

2) I wasn’t pregnant.

During the procedure, in which Emily used an acoustic gel that was spread with the wand, I heard a loud squishy sound.

“Was that me?” I asked.

“Yes,” she reported.

“Sorry,” I said. “When you get to be this age, these things happen.”

Emily and Sue rotated their eyeballs again.

When Emily ran the wand over my throat, she said, “Keep your chin up.”

“I always do,” I said. “Then I walk into a wall.”

More ocular twirling.

When she was finished, Emily took my blood pressure and pronounced it “perfect.” Then she said I could put my shirt back on.

“How is my aneurysm?” I asked.

“You’ll have to ask the cardiologist,” she said.

So I did.

“It’s about the same,” said Dr. Rohit Maini. “You have good numbers, so you still don’t need surgery.”

He walked me and Sue to the front desk.

“Are you checking out?” the receptionist asked me.

“Not for a long time,” I answered.

“Six months,” Dr. Maini said.

“You’re giving me six months?” I spluttered. “I want a second opinion.”

“No,” he said with a smile. “I’ll see you again in six months.”

“Thanks, doc,” I said. “It does my heart, but not Sue’s eyeballs, a world of good.”

Copyright 2026 by Jerry Zezima

 

"A Real Eye-Opener"

By Jerry Zezima

I am a man of vision — 20/30, to be exact. And my wife, Sue, is a woman of vision — also 20/30.

So why can’t we find our glasses? Or keep track of how many pairs we have? Or use the right ones when we want to read, drive or watch TV?

Those were the eye-opening questions we had for a certified optician who gave each of us a free vision screening at a local library.

“When you go to an eye doctor, you should always be late,” I told Andy Torres, who sat behind a table with a screening machine.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because,” I replied triumphantly, “then you can say, ‘I couldn’t find you.’ ”

Andy laughed and said, “I could see that one coming.”

“You could SEE it coming?” I chirped. “I am so proud of you!”

Sue rolled her bespectacled eyes. Andy’s eyes twinkled behind his specs.

“Speaking of which,” I went on, “is it some sort of rule that all eye specialists have to wear glasses?”

“I don’t know,” said Andy. “I’ve been wearing them since I was 11. I’m one year away from 30, so I guess I fit the stereotype.”

“I guess Sue and I fit a stereotype, too,” I said.

“Which one is that?” Andy inquired.

“Senior citizens,” I said, “who have glasses all around the house, which they can’t find. I mean the glasses, not the house, in which case they’d need a stronger prescription.”

“I have an older patient who told me she has glasses in every room,” Andy said.

“Sue says she has 90 pairs,” I said.

“Only 90?” he asked Sue.

“Some are for reading, some are for watching TV and some are for driving,” she said. “I don’t like bifocals, so I have to keep changing glasses.”

Sue added that some are prescription glasses and others are Peepers, a brand of nonprescription glasses called readers.

“I have readers,” I told Andy. “They’re for looking at the moon.”

“Really?” he wondered.

“No,” I admitted. “They’re for reading.”

Just for that, Andy let Sue go first for the vision screening.

She looked into the machine while wearing reading glasses and read lines on a chart. Then she put on her driving glasses and did the same.

“You have 20/30 vision with both pairs,” Andy told her.

Then it was my turn.

“I don’t wear glasses except to read, which I only started to do recently,” I said.

“You only recently started to read?” Andy asked.

“No, I could always read,” I said. “The problem is that I can’t write. But that’s another matter.”

I explained that I got readers a few months ago. I brought a pair with me. I also brought a pair of glasses my now-retired optometrist prescribed for me. I’m supposed to use them for driving at night when it’s raining, but I really don’t need them.

“Put on your readers and look into the machine,” Andy instructed.

I easily read the first four of six lines of letters. The fifth line was a bit more difficult.

“C,” I began hesitantly. “R. Z. H. And the chemical symbol for boron.”

I did the same with my distance glasses. I also read without glasses.

“You have 20/30 vision, too,” Andy told me.

“My former optometrist said I had 20/40 vision,” I said. “My new optometrist said I have 20/30 vision. I think my vision is improving.”

“Some people see better as they get older,” Andy said.

“Could I end up with X-ray vision?” I asked.

“Not unless you eat carrots,” he said.

“We had carrots last night,” I said.

“Keep eating them,” Andy said.

“At least I don’t have cataracts,” I said.

“Did you know dogs can get cataracts?” he said.

“Does that mean cats can get dogaracts?” I wondered.

Andy laughed and said, “I could see that one coming, too.”

Copyright 2026 by Jerry Zezima

"My Big 5-Oh"

By Jerry Zezima

1976 was a spectacular year in the United States, with fireworks, parades and a nationwide celebration to mark a momentous event in American history.

I refer, of course, to my unlikely start in journalism.

There was also, on a much smaller scale, the Bicentennial, the 200th anniversary of our nation’s independence.

Now, 50 years after I got a job at my hometown paper, the Stamford Advocate in Connecticut, it is time to reflect on a career that has somehow failed to ruin the entire newspaper industry.

Of course, the business is in enough trouble as it is, but at least I can also say that I have not yet, for the alleged crime of being a journalist, been arrested.

It’s a good thing, too, because my lawyer is in jail.

I entered the Fourth Estate, which I still can’t afford, when I walked into the offices of the Stamford Advocate and, with absolutely no experience, announced that I wanted to work there.

Instead of throwing me out, the editor, Roland Blais, a kindly gentleman and a true newspaperman, gave me a test that included grammar, current events and history.

I did well enough because I was hired, but there were some questions to which I didn’t know the answers, so instead of leaving them blank or taking half-hearted guesses, I put down the dumbest, funniest, most outrageous stuff I could think of.

Later, in his office, Mr. Blais said, “That’s what got you the job. It showed signs of creativity.”

I was going to say that I didn’t think you were supposed to make stuff up in a newspaper, but for once in my life, I kept my mouth shut.

I started as a copyboy, but I was quickly promoted to police reporter and sat next to Tony Dolan, who smoked cigars in the newsroom and, in 1978, won the Pulitzer Prize for local investigative reporting.

I like to think my mere presence inspired his award and propelled him to become the chief speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, but if I ever win a Pulitzer, it would indeed be the end of American journalism.

I failed spectacularly in a succession of other jobs — sportswriter, assistant metro editor, assistant features editor and feature writer — until there was nothing left to do but be a humor columnist.

I got that job in 1985 and have been writing stuff that has no redeeming social value ever since.

In 1997, I left the Advocate to work at Newsday, on Long Island, New York, as a copy editor. I was in charge of inserting typographical errors and libelous mistakes into feature stories, but I must not have done a very good job because I was never sued.

In 2019, I was offered a buyout, which was better than a get-out because it involved a generous lump sum, so I took the money and ran, nearly spraining an ankle that wouldn’t have been covered under my medical plan.

Since then, I have continued to write my nationally syndicated column for Tribune News Service about such important topics as taking my wife to the dump on our anniversary, having my fingernails painted by two of my granddaughters and buying an air horn to deter telephone scammers.

Much has changed in the newspaper industry since I started half a century ago. I have gone from writing on manual typewriters to sophisticated computers, which has made things easier, although no one ever ran through a newsroom shouting, “The typewriters are down!”

Journalists aren’t held in high regard by the public these days, even though the public, thanks to the First Amendment of the Constitution, benefits from our work. The guys whose work was celebrated in 1976 saw to that.

I’ll celebrate my 50th year in the newspaper business by raising a glass to Roland Blais, who gave me a chance when I bluffed my way into the profession I love.

I might even write a column about it.

Copyright 2026 by Jerry Zezima