A Tale of Two Beanies

Back from another brief foray into the smoke to check out the grandson.
Swear he'll be a blues guitarist one day.
Spends a lot of his days listening to Cedell Davis, Eric Bibb and R.L. Burnside.
Can't be a bad start to life.
Just got to get Twenty-Twenty-Vision Smith and Everglades Johnson on the stereo and his education will be complete.
(Note to self: post story of the latter two here before too long.)

Was thinking on the way back down here of when I started to feel vaguely old.
Birthdays, I guess, always bring on such thoughts and, being the ultimate man of slow feeling, it took me a couple of weeks to catch up.
So: a few birthdays ago, the Sledgettes gave me this great red beanie.
Really bright and obvious and celebrating a certain (real) football club.
I went down to the Minjup deli wearing it proudly and was told in a version of Italian it took me a while to work out: Well, Sledge, when you get too senile, at least they'll be able to find you when you wander off!

(Still wondering why "senile" [same word in Italian] has come to mean "gaga" when it's just to "old" as "juvenile" is to "young".
Language is odd.
Now "senators" get sacked for being too old.
And that Natasha Spot-Destroyer?)

The new red beanie was a supplement to my trad green one: more camouflaged and so better for bird-watching; not to mention hiding bad hair in the morning.
Then, as it was winter, when I went out for a stroll through the bush with certain young lady of my (then) acquaintance, I offered her a choice of beanies.
I read in an etiquette book once that that's what gentlemen do -- such are my aspirations.
She took the green one at first then gave it right back with this (I admit, very appealing) turned-up nose: "It smells of old man".

Two hits in one day then.
And in two languages I barely understand.

Sledge