Eccentric insanity — the definition differs depending on which voice you listen to

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Two celebrities died last week. Ironically on the same day. One lived a life on the edge either because of eccentricity or insanity, take your pick.

I knew Farrah Fawcett was battling cancer, I watched some interviews leading up to her special she did in May about her battle. I didn’t watch the special. It would have been difficult at best.

Farrah and Michael Jackson both were part of my growing years.

I remember listening to the Jackson Five when I was in grade school and junior high.

When I was in junior high in Tucson, Ariz., there were sock hops after school every once in a while.

This was supposed to be fun. Everyone took their shoes off and threw them in a pile and danced sock-footed on the gym floor. Well most everyone.

Michael Jackson and his brothers were popular and their songs were often played along with Donny Osmund and his brothers and of course, his sister Marie.

Charlie’s Angels was a popular show when I was in high school. Farrah’s hairstyle was copied by many high school girls back then.
She was popular and remained so even though she only briefly appeared as an angel.

She died on the same day as Michael Jackson, who changed a lot over the years from the cute little boy moonwalking across stages during appearances with his older brothers. It wasn’t fair how the focus was on Jackson.

It’s a little sad both are gone, Fawcett will be remembered for her looks and Jackson, well, he will be remembered all right.

Was Jackson eccentric or insane? It depends on who you talk to.

It’s funny how role models can shape who we are or who we try to be.

I’ve tried to be my own person rather than model myself after anyone else.

Am I eccentric or insane? There again, it depends on who you ask.

My neighbors probably would go with the insane when they see me out crawling around in the garden pulling weeds when the temperature is in the upper 90s.

Actually, just about anyone who knows me would probably lean toward the insane side.

While I tend to think I may be getting a little eccentric. It’s part of the aging process isn’t? If it isn’t it should be.

“When I am old I shall wear purple,” is a poem by Jenny Joseph. In it, I find the answer to growing old, but maybe not gracefully:
“When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple with a red hat that doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves and satin candles, and say we’ve no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells and run my stick along the public railings and make up for the sobriety of my youth. I shall go out in my slippers in the rain and pick the flowers in other people’s gardens and learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat and eat three pounds of sausages at a go or only bread and pickles for a week and hoard pens and pencils and beer nuts and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry and pay our rent and not swear in the street and set a good example for the children. We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now? So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised.When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.”