Ebenezer Scrooge Was a Jolly Old Soul !

Scrooge was really a jolly old soul!

As Christmas time approached us, in the 1950’s, we always looked with great anticipation to watching the 1951 film adaptation of the Charles Dickens’s classic, “ A Christmas Carol.” The lead character, the inimitable Alistair Sims, played the crotchety old Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge.

We chortled withy glee as the old rascal grumbled about people with children, poor people and every other event around him. Poor Bob Cratchit, we thought. He was stuck working with a miserable human being like Ebenezer Scrooge. It is only now, as I approach the esteemed Mr. Scrooge’s age, that I begin to realize that the old rascal wasn’t so different from the rest of aging males then and now.

Every day it seems, we run into another angry old man that would have given even Alistair Sims inspiration for his role. They are angry at being alive, angry with others being around them, angry that all of their friends and family have passed on without them and yes, even angry at being angry all of the time. What’s up with that? Where are all the pill pushers we read about who dispense Valium and Xanax like it was candy? Maybe we ought to start putting Valium in their prune juice so they can clean it out and clam it up all in the same dosage?

We were on the golf course the other day when we came on Scrooge’s older brother. We should have known it when we saw that no one played before or after him, that there would be a problem. He must have been the local pariah, emitting some kind of febrile anger to anyone who came near. As we approached the green, we espied his ball sitting on the emerald surface. We stood by patiently. He was apparently searching for a lost ball. When he looked up from his search, he waved angrily at us to go on and hit through him, so we didn’t interrupt his search. Old men, angry or not, never give up a ball. We did as instructed and hit onto the green. We also found his lost ball and presented it to him. He uttered a muffled grunt.

We hurriedly putted out and made out way to the next tee. It was then that he hollered something about us being rude. I politely advised him that he had waved us through. It didn’t matter. It triggered an angry verbal tirade. In that my own serenity to homicidal rage indicator spans but eleven seconds, I knew enough to move on. As if to punctuate his anger he hit a ball at us that flew over our heads. I turned but momentarily and thought that going to jail for assault would only make the old bastard’s day. We continued on and finished quickly. Ebenezer Scrooge would have been a much jollier companion.

On another occasion, as we crossed a busy road out on a walk, an elderly driver, perhaps Scrooge’s cousin, sped up his vehicle toward us as we crossed. We made it across, but the old rascal shook his head at us disgusted for crossing a road in front of him. I could see his point though. Running over and killing pedestrians, with a two-ton vehicle, is a fair punishment for crossing a road. After all, fair is fair.

Where does all of this anger come from? Maybe the prune juice and Valium proscriptive isn’t so bad an idea? As for ourselves, we find that awakening each day, when we have all lost so many, is a blessing that the good Lord has given us. We try to appreciate each day and celebrate it as the rare good opportunity that it is. We are fortunate to be alive and have each other.

And we try, when our blood pressure and jocular mood allows us, to laugh at the miserable old rascals who stomp through their later years, angry with everything around them. Do they need a good hug? Yes, but who wants to risk their wrath for giving them one? One prune juice and Valium special, please!!

                                               -30-

                                          (693 words)

                                     Joseph Xavier Martin