Chukar Hunting For Prunes

When I was in high school, a man or woman over the age of 60 was a “Prune” – an individual with wrinkles who was obviously in his declining years.

- Alan Liere

They came from a place we teenagers called “Prune City,” a city without humor, vitality or ambition – certainly not sex – a place largely populated by people we also called “Q-tips” and “blue hairs.”

Sadly, no one is exempt from the aging process, but I was not even 60 when I prematurely entered the gates of Prune City. I had crossed the Columbia River near Pasco, Washington, on my way to hunt grouse and black-tailed deer with a nephew who lived near Portland, Oregon. I had not been there in some time, and as I remembered it, one merely crossed the river on a big blue bridge, turned immediately west onto Interstate 84 and then drove all the way to Portland along the river on the Oregon side.

As it turns out, there were several exits onto numerous highways and another bridge before I merged onto I-84. Furthermore, if I headed immediately west as instincts dictated, I would eventually have to make an illegal U-turn to get back on track. My arthritis was acting up when for the second time in a half hour, I limped into the same convenience store for directions. The young woman behind the counter looked at me sympathetically and called me Sir. I could almost hear her thinking, “Alzheimer’s probably. Dementia at least … Poor old dear … Prune City.”