Briones: A question of age

AM I turning into an old fogey?

Don’t get me wrong. This column is not about whether I’ve turned 40 already.

But over the years, and I hate to admit it, I’ve realized that, on a subconscious level, I’ve been agreeing more and more with the establishment.

For someone who identified himself with the liberals in college, it has come as a shock.

I first noticed the change when I started hanging out outside my grandmother’s house on Urgello St. after work, which would be past 11 p.m., nursing a bottle of “milk” while listening to Sassy Sarah.

Believe it or not, many people pass by. Even up to the wee hours of the morning. Most of them are college students coming home from a drinking binge. So yes, many of them are loud. Very.

At first, it didn’t bother me.

But when people started to loiter next door to drink by the side of the road, with me privy to their conversations like I was sitting there right next to them because they would be shouting out every word, thus drowning out the silky voice of Miss Vaughan, I decided I’ve had enough.

It wasn’t long before I found myself going out of the gate and telling them to pipe down or I would call the police, which, by the way, I have done on a couple of occasions.

Ten years ago, I would have been drinking with those guys, and all eyes and ears would have been on me because, quite frankly, I would have been the loudest of the bunch.

And now I’m telling them, with a slight slur because that’s what “milk” does to my system, to zip it.

That’s when I realized that something had to give. And since college kids will always be college kids, I took the moral high ground and set up shop inside. Away from the din. With cats in never ending heat and snoring cooks as my companions.

Because the whole purpose of my being there was to relax. But how could I relax with my blood pressure rising whenever I see minors roaming the streets past midnight, the girls wearing next to nothing, the arms of cursing, cigarette-smoking boys draped around them?

Mind you, I started smoking and drinking at 14. Not heavily at first. But there was a time when I smoked two packs a day and drank every night. I kicked the nicotine habit four years ago but I still drink “milk” on a nightly basis.

To relax.

So when I read that PNP Director General Oscar Albayalde does not want to see vagrants, or “istambay,” loitering in the streets during late hours, I was like, finally, someone who understands what I’m going through.

Although, I’m pretty sure the police top brass is older than me. Way much older.

Decades.

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