Toe Rubber Blues: Mid-life Thoughts on the Prospects of Aging

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

Tom Allen’s claim to fame is as an on-air personality for CBC Radio.
In that role, he undoubtedly has to fill a lot of air time by chatting
to himself, a skill he has carried over to this collection of musings.

At 35, he realizes he is no longer a kid; in fact, he is beginning to
look like his father. While this would not amaze most of us, Allen
thinks it is pretty interesting. Apparently he doesn’t know that
everyone gets a year older every year and that aging is not really a
unique event.

He shares his amazement with us as he looks at the everyday things that
make up a middle-class life for a middle-aged man. In dull chapter after
dull chapter, we’re given his ramblings about the way boats and cars
and homes have changed, the way e-mail works (or not, in his case), how
his pay cheque vanishes into the wonders of electronic banking, and,
that most fascinating of observations, how he has started to wear toe
rubbers.