Have you been peeking into my mind lately, Ron? Love your poem!

Monseigneur Don Ron, I hear on the local Grape-Vine's juicy "sauces", that your "Troubles" are just about to sprout: the descendants - and they are plentiful - of the Grand Ol' Master of the Globe on the Thames are about to stage a coup at the European Supreme Court of Human Rights to exact payment for "mis-appropriation of words" by fleecing you of all your bulging funds on Authorsden - unless before that Red-Letter day you manage to stache all your loot in the high Etruscan Alps where they meet up with the craggy Alps (a safe place, I hear, where great numbers of moneyed lawyers bury their ill-gotten gains), and by which act you own up to the crime shame-facedly perpetrated here.
It would also be wise to change your name to something Etruscan-sounding like Hullerin-Dunstan - I would like to hope for old-time's sake !
"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely Players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His Acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."

Note: According to T. W. Baldwin, Shakespeare's version of the concept of the ages of man is based primarily upon Pier Angelo Manzolli's book Zodiacus Vitae, a school text he might have studied at the Stratford Grammar School, which also enumerates stages of human life. He also takes elements from Ovid and other sources known to him.[8] In fact, Shakespeare developed the idea of all the world being a stage by reading the epigrams of Palladas the Cynic, whose work pre-dated all the sources cited above.
[Note: Thanks to WIKIPEDIA - Article truncated here for a specific purpose.] Best wishes for Xmas - as always. TW

It’s like you were a fly on our wall this morning, during coffee and conversation. Jeez oh man does your appropriate topic ring throughout my head. I like that you have illustrated this in poetic succinctity, Ron, which made it an enjoyably-identifiable depiction of ‘aging out’ of current times. I even like the title because it is what the poem is all about — difficulties and the energy, resources, and for me, disorientation confronting them.

Last four lines have the key word ‘unnecessary’ in them….last Rx pick-up I had, for a refill of something I’ve been taken, was in a paper bag with 13 = thirteen! double-sided, small print pages folded in half = ‘unnecesssary’. Insurance liability catalog. Your title is adroitly applicable to the 13 pages. I’m glad I’m not alone in sharing the perspective of your last line here. Write on, Ron . . ! ~~ djl

Both uplifting and words to ponder in a more sullen mindset. Nicely phrased and a matter that can always use another opinion on the inevitability of growing old.