Meet the Geezers

The Geezers are a group of longtime friends who have known each other for 45 years or more. We grew up together in a small river town along the upper Mississippi, a place where people rarely locked their doors, and a time when it was fine and reasonable for kids to trust adult strangers. We went to small town high-school together, played sports together, drank together, celebrated our marriages together. Today we play monopoly and on-line games together, we celebrate our kids' life events together, and we of course still drink together—though we are now far-flung to different regions of the country and globe.  We’re now beginning to grow old together, too. 

Our wives, who are also friends with one another, describe us “old, yes, but really, really immature.”

We claim membership to this dubious club for the following reasons:

• We are 55 years of age or older, and actively bemoaning the fact.

• We have a lofty sense of our own worldly wisdom and an absolutely shameless willingness to spew it forth

• We are willing accept verbal (but loving) savagery at the hands of trusted friends who know our every weakness and shortcoming

• We have an absolute conviction that the younger generation knows nothing, and simply must follow our advice (dammit) if the world is to survive.

The roll-call of the Geezers Emeritus

Mercurious is the publisher of Old Geezers, a role forced on him because he has spent his career in the book publishing business.  Mercurious is a recovering anarchist with two grown children, living with his wife of 34 years in the Minneapolis area. In his guise as scholarly Geezer, Mercurious’ specializes in comparative mystical nonsense. Impulsive to a fault, the Publisher is often savaged by his “friends” who take advantage of his impatient ways. His hobbies are gardening, decent Scotch, movies, books, and text-messaging with his inner demons.

The Professor has recently returned from a lengthy stint teaching in the UK, where he added a reputation for knowing good cigars to his previous notoriety for bombastic oratory. Where once it was the shy coeds who quietly longed for him, it is now the grandmothers of those coeds who think he's "kind of cute for an old guy." This makes his wife of 34 years chuckle. As a Geezer, the Professor's areas of expertise are surprisingly renaissance in scope: he can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never ever let you forget you’re a man.

The Mathematician has recently retired from his career with a major US corporation, but he still practices a paradoxical love of money, socialist causes, fine foods, and seedy strip clubs.  As a Geezer, M is known as a highly deliberate, articulate and thoughtful social commentator with the heart of a teddie bear. He is a courageously devout atheist—not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. The Mathematician has two adult children, and he lives happily in service to his wife, who is a lot more fun than he is.

Dr. Golf A fiscal conservative but moral libertine, Golf  lives on the east coast with his understanding wife, where he owns his own independent accounting business. In the geezer world, he is widely known for his talent for skilled social dancing while simultaneously offering sound financial advice and liquor recommendations. His idea of heaven is a good round of golf followed by a sampling of great tequilas. In the various social games he plays with fellow geezers, Golf is known for subtle friendliness punctuated with heartless and unexpected aggression.

Guest Geezers

Sehr Wenig, currently the only female guest geezer, is a skilled writer and creative force living in a coastal region. She was a regular reader for many years before losing her self esteem enough to submit an essay.  Her actual participation in Geezer journalism was suggested by an analyst as a therapy for a particularly embarrassing neurotic condition. Though outwardly more responsible that most of the Geezers Emeritous, Sehr harbors an inner quality of immaturity that is entirely apropos to Geezers Out to Lunch. While some Geezers hold her very large talent with language against her, other, more manly Geezers can think of other, warmer things they'd like hold against her. 

The Maestro was one a potential Geezer Emeritus, but all-to-frequent alien abductions thwarted this ambition. If and when he returns to earth again, it is hoped he will grace these pages with his peculiar brand of psychotic wisdom and wanderings. He is a close associate of the Geezers Emeritus, and although his literal contributions are sparse to this date, his influence on the writings of the Geezers Emeritus is undeniable.  

Mad Marvin is the oldest Geezer to ever write here, and is not a member or even acquaintance of the original Geezers Emeritus. We don't even really like him. Well into his 60's, now,  Mad Marvin was once an original, tie-dyed-in-the wool hippie liberal pinko of profound peace-loving sappiness. But later in life a profound cynicism overcame him, manifesting in rabidly extremist views. These days, his rants retain their liberal flavor on some occasions, though escalating to nearly anarchist levels. At other times he is unabashedly right-wing in his views. He is, in other words, quite literally schizophrenic. And off his meds.

"Since George Shaw" as a pen name is not a reference to the author of Pygmalion; instead, Mr. Shaw is a an obsessed Minnesota sports fan since football helmets were made of leather. Our Mr. Shaw is an astute amateur film critic as well as a writer of his own screenplays. He is a former rabble-rouser who came of age in the late 1960s, when rousing rabbles was a lot more fun and profitable than it is to day. He retains a good measure of that old 1960's contentiousness, though is now notably softened by grandfatherhood. With his wife, "Since George Shaw" lives in Minneapolis where he tends large flower beds filled with dahlias.