Sometimes I question my qualifications as a geezer.

Oh sure.

• The hair is white. (check)
• Jeans and Birks are standard for most days. (check)
• Joe Ferrell, Walter Tunis, Joe Gatton, Eric Johnson, Jim Rodgers, Paul Thomas, Walter May, and Chuck Pogue – all renown geezers themselves – are friends of mine. (check)
• I hadn’t recognized a “Star-Spangled Banner” singer for a decade until Gladys Knight wailed and nailed it at the Super Bowl (though it was sans Pips to my dismay). (check)
• I once voted for McGovern…or was it FDR? (check)
• I forget things and happily confuse decades and various lifetimes. (check)
• And I can yell “Get offa my lawn” like a banshee. (check)

But sometimes I worry that I’m missing something somewhere.

Then my music mix shuffles to the next selection and by the end of it I realize I’m grinning in complete happiness at Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters’ rendition of “Don’t Fence Me In”.

Punch my ticket. I’m totally validated.