John Grindrod: At a certain age, mail that reminds me of my own mortality

Certainly the increase in usage of email, which traces its roots way back to 1971 when a guy named Ray Tomlinson first hit the send button, has dramatically impacted the U.S. Postal Service, once thought to be as indispensable as any service our government provides.

As a matter of fact, many of you may have sent an email birthday greeting a whole lot more recently than an actual birthday card that wound up in someone's mailbox.

Despite my mailbox's primary use, which is as a receptacle for bills and solicitations, periodically, I do find something that both amuses me but also reminds me of something we aging folks would rather not spend huge blocks of time thinking about, our own mortality.

For one piece, in particular, such was the case, but, first, a little back story is needed.

Recently, I decided that $24 was a pretty fair price for a monthly subscription to a magazine called MLB Insiders Club. As a 60-year-old white man, I kind of fit the demographic of the most hard core baseball fan in the country, so I kind of thought it was my duty to subscribe.

To be honest, I also liked the enticements to subscribe, which is the printed version of those, “But wait there's more” portions of TV infomercials. The throw-in merchandise consisted of a window decal of the MLB trademark, a jacket zipper pull and a blanket with the logo of my beloved Yankees, of whom I've been a devotee since I first laid eyes on Mickey Mantle in 1960 gliding across the center field grass at the old Yankee Stadium.

Face it. There's a little boy that lives in all older guys, and getting some things for free reminds us of days a half-century ago when we ran breathlessly to the mailbox to see if the baking soda bathtub frogmen, magnets, secret decoder rings and Dick Tracy wristwatches had finally arrived.

Now, aside from the fact that I had no jackets with missing pulls, no real window in mind to affix the decal, and no real need for another blanket, especially one with the thickness of a cloth napkin, hey, it was free stuff, damn it!

Fast forward to just two days after I received my very first issue, and I found in the old mailbox a letter of congratulations, saying that I had been selected from thousands of subscribers because of my loyalty to the magazine and the game it covers and was given the opportunity to join the “inner circle.” My loyalty to the magazine came 48 hours after my very first issue. While I've always embraced loyalty, it seems mine came with a pretty small price tag.

The inner circle was, for “just” $28.75 a month for 12 months, $345 total, and a whole bunch more free stuff, a rebate check for the $24 I paid for the subscription and a lifetime of monthly magazines.

The last line in the letter really amused me.

“As a small percentage of Life Memberships become available each year, those spots are awarded to preferred Club Members, and this year, your name made it to the top of the highly coveted list.”

Wow, two days after my first magazine ever? Who knew how meteoric my ascension on the list could be?

I decided to pass on the lifetime offer and more free stuff — a jacket and patch to iron on and other trinkets — more reminders of those baking-soda bathtub frogmen. Yes, I would keep the $345 in my jeans for a couple of reasons.

First, I don't really have time to commit to a lot of magazines. I have copies of Sports Illustrated stacked beside the bed just waiting for me. By the time I get to bed after a day of labor, I start an article, and, before I know it, I open my eyes with a magazine tent covering my face and the light still on at 2 a.m.

And, second, the thought passed through my noggin that I wasn't really sure how good a deal it was, given the fact that life's road in front of me, at 60, no doubt, is a whole lot shorter than what I've already traveled.

I even started doing the math, something at which I am woefully inadequate, as my friend Roger Scott, who's caught me in some computation errors in some of my literary musings, will attest, to see how long, at $2 an issue and 12 months a year, I would have to live to make it a good deal, realizing, of course, that it would matter little once I'm pushing up daisies at Gethsemani.

However, it also occurred to me that those who will wrap up my loose ends, my lovely daughters, Shannon and Katie, who will always be the loves of my life, won't be too happy with dear old Dad, who will have already rounded third and headed for home to score his final run, if those magazines kept coming long after he either scored or got thrown out at the plate.

You see, I really never was able to transfer my love of the national pastime to them. While Katie did play some softball once upon a Lima Central Catholic time, she really doesn't follow the game now, and I'm pretty certain Shannon doesn't know an infield fly from a house fly.

And so it goes with those daily treks to the mailbox to pull out much of which is predictable but, occasionally, something that both amuses and reminds me of something that, well, I'd really rather not think about.