For them, age has no bearing

For someone who just turned 69 two weeks ago and still has a hard time believing it, because it seems like just yesterday I was 22, kudos to Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez who turns 81 this November.

I first got to know him when he was making his first run as McAllen mayor in 2005. Who can believe that’s been almost 20 years? I can’t.

Cortez’s age came to light while writing the front-page story this week about the county courthouse, soon to be open for business, or one can hope. I couldn’t remember exactly what he did after he decided not to run for a third term as McAllen mayor, so I looked him up online, expecting actually to find an old Advance News story, and who would have known, he has his own Wikipedia page, as some other local politicians do, such as former McAllen Mayor Jim Darling, who is 75, by the way.

Not sure what it takes these days to get your own Wiki page, and I haven’t started to look up other elected officials, but it’s helpful in the grand scheme of things when you’re writing about someone and you want to locate a particular fact.

Of course, if you’re a smart journalist, present company excluded, you’ll locate a second source to fact check the info on Wikipedia; but for the most part, that encyclopedic platform is seldom wrong.

What Keeps Me Going

Guys like Richard Cortez, and even Jim Darling, are the people who keep me going when I start to feel old.

If you’re still relatively young, you can’t relate to what I’m writing, but if you’re lucky enough to make it to at least 65, you will one day.

I was speaking recently with Jim Darling, as a matter of fact, and the issue of age came up; can’t remember why; but we agreed, if one stays active, there’s a better chance we’ll live longer. Technically, Darling is retired, but he still does consulting work, and he sits on more boards and committees than I have fingers.

Plus, if you do something you like doing — in my case, writing — it’s not really work. Trust me, in my younger days, say between the ages of 14 and 23 before I got into aviation and then journalism, the jobs I did were indeed work because most were just something to make money. Getting up and going to work each morning was a chore.

Which is why it’s so important in life to find something you either like doing or can tolerate because the work atmosphere is enjoyable.

I became self-employed at the age of 38, which was a blessing because I never hit it off with any of my bosses; at least not completely. There was always that anti-establishment, anti-authoritarian bent in me, which made it unpleasant to take orders from anyone, which is why I never would have made it in the military. I would have been assigned the drill instructor who hated me on sight, even with a shaved head.

In sports, my coaches either loved me or hated me; there was no in-between, which is why I ended up running so many laps long after my teammates had already left for home. They thought they could turn me into a conformist, but they never could.

Like Joe Namath, I dyed my football cleats white, and the coach went nuts.

So, congrats to Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez for still working a difficult job at the age of 80; getting up every day; getting dressed; and going to work in the public sector, no less, where people with no clue still love to take pot shots at elected officials, now using social media as their platform of choice.

Like so many others of his approximate age who keep on keeping on, Judge Cortez is, for me, an inspiration.

So is my dear friend Nedra Kinerk, by the way, of Futuro RGV and so many other civic ties, who is now in her early 90s, but makes me feel old every time I speak with her. The energy she emits, her zest for life, her love of community, people, is yet another example of someone I try to emulate as the years pass by.

Go, Nedra. Go, Judge Cortez. I’ll include former McAllen Mayor and City Attorney Jim Darling in the mix as well because I like the guy so much, even if he still is relatively young at 75.

There are some other people, who aren’t public figures, in their 70s, 80s, and 90s whom I know and admire. They know who they are. Salud, because you, too, serve as my inspiration as I hobble down this road we call life.