Over the Hill and Picking Up Speed

 

It’s funny how we spend our whole lives trying to achieve something. We have goals and ambitions. We strive to get our prize. That thing that will fill our desire, feed our ego, and satisfy our pride. We spend our youth heading uphill, fighting gravity, ambition, acne, bad decisions, and eventually office politics. Then, if we’re lucky, we reach the top and enjoy the view for approximately somewhere between seven minutes to ten years before someone hands us reading glasses and a cholesterol pamphlet. Once we begin down the far side, we are said to be “over the hill.” It doesn’t mean we’re finished, exactly—just that gravity has joined the conversation and is pulling us down the other side.

That’s a fairly easy concept to grasp. But why are we said to be getting “long in the tooth?” The phrase comes from horses. As horses age, their gums recede, and their teeth appear longer. People who bought, sold, or judged horses could estimate a horse’s age by looking at its teeth. So if a horse was “long in the tooth,” it was getting old. Eventually, English did what English always does: it looked at a practical livestock detail and said, “Let’s use that on Grandma.”

Unless they are a thoroughbred racing in front of tens of thousands of excited fans, most horses have a pretty mundane life: eat hay, stare over fences, swat flies, and occasionally pretend a canvas sack hanging around their neck full of feed is the equivalent of being a mountain lion devouring its prey in the open plains of Midwest America. Once a race horse is no longer in its peak form and can’t preform well enough to bring home the trophies, they are put out to pasture so they too can eat grass, stare over fences, etc.

I do not consider myself “long in the tooth,” but I’ve certainly been around the block—several times, in fact, and maybe once or twice I may have taken a wrong turn and have endured life experiences that have either made me wiser to life’s challenges or become too embarrassing to share with anyone who has had less than six drinks of strong whiskey. The phrase simply means I’ve lived long enough, seen enough, and made enough mistakes to recognize a bad idea even when it shows up wearing a tie, carrying a clipboard, and calling itself an “opportunity.” The origin is easy to picture: someone who has been around the block has been out in the world instead of standing on the porch waiting for instructions. They know the streets, the shortcuts, the suspicious alleys, and which neighbors borrow tools permanently. So when we say a person has “been around the block,” we mean they have experience—not necessarily wisdom, but enough mileage to know when life is trying to sell them an extended warranty on something they never bought.

After going over the hill, getting long in the tooth, and being around the block, a fellow may eventually find him or herself at death’s door. The phrase means very near death, though it is also used by men with mild fevers who believe their wives should gather the children and prepare final remarks. The origin comes from the old image of death as a doorway or threshold—the final entrance a person reaches at the end of life. For centuries, writers and preachers described death as a gate, door, or passage into whatever comes next. So when someone is “at death’s door,” he is imagined standing on the porch of eternity, knocking politely and hoping nobody answers.

And since we’ve made a turn toward darkness, let me leave you with why my wife has banned me from saying “bless you” or the even more damning “God bless you” when she sneezes. Apparently, my tone makes it sound less like a blessing and more like I’m signing a medical release to “pull the plug.” The custom of blessing someone who sneezes dates back to the 6th century during a plague outbreak—kind of like COVID on steroids, except with worse hygiene and fewer people arguing on the internet. Sneezing was thought to be a sign of imminent death, which seems dramatic until you remember they were dealing with plague, not seasonal allergies and a dusty box of Christmas decorations. Pope Gregory I decreed that people say “God bless you” as a quick prayer of protection whenever someone sneezed, but more than likely, you were on your way out.

Of course, if the sneezer was already halfway to meeting his maker, the blessing may have arrived a day late and a dollar short—an Americanism that means too late and not enough. Missing a deadline by a day or coming up short by a dollar are both small failures—but together they form a tidy little disaster. It’s what happens when you finally show up with a solution, only to discover the problem has already packed its bags, left town, and charged you a convenience fee.