I'm 58 years old. On the plus side, I've still got all my hair. On the minus side, I don't have all my teeth. On the plus side, I can still wear sport coats I bought 20 years ago. They're tweed. Tweed lasts. I can't box anymore because of my right knee, which will no longer allow me to pivot the way you have to if you're going to throw a good right hand. Age is winning, but on the right night, I can feel like I'm holding the years to a tie.

About three weeks ago, I was in a social situation with two 30-something fellows who were discussing their college years.

"I was a barista in college," one of them said.

"So was I," the other guy said.

A barista is the person who makes coffee at a Starbucks coffee place. At the diner I go to, the person who makes the coffee is named "Rosaria" and I do not believe she calls herself anything other than, "someone who owns a diner."

"I still know how to make all those drinks," one of the former baristas said to the other, and the two of them were off on a magical memory tour of lattes with soy milk, double foam, a caramel drizzle and a dusting of cinnamon or nutmeg or garlic.

I let them finish.

"When I was in graduate school, I was a bartender," I said. "I still remember how to break up bar fights with a baseball bat."

Geez, it felt good when they both stopped talking.

It was the classic old-guy diss. Lattes, schmattes. Try using a worn Louisville Slugger to back down a belligerent laborer who has drunkenly decided that some other fellow is "looking at" his girlfriend.

I do remember how to use a baseball bat to break up a bar fight. The trick is to keep the bat in motion at all times. Don't swing it, shake it, and make sure the other guy doesn't step inside the arc of the bat. A baseball bat is a long-range weapon. The guy on the thick end of the bat is at an extreme disadvantage but, if he steps inside the arc and grabs the bat, the two of you end up struggling over the damn thing, and you lose all your power in the relationship.

I didn't play baseball in either grade school or high school, so my introduction to the bat came late, and only as a weapon. Breaking up fights terrified me, too, since you never know if the belligerent drunk is carrying a pistol.

Usually, all I had to do was come out from behind the bar with the bat in my hand, shake it shoulder high a couple of times and the belligerent drunk's friends (they all have a lot of friends) would drag him out of the place.

Was it worth it, to be terrified all those years ago, for $20 a shift and tips? Was it worth it just to be able to hand out the old-guy diss to a couple of former baristas?

No. It wasn't worth it, not at all. I was scared and acting tougher than I was, trying to get through grad school on short money. It was awful. I'm glad I remember that, too. If I slide into nostalgia, I'll really be an annoying old guy.

To find out more about Marc Munroe Dion and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. Dion's latest book, "Marc Dion: Vol. I" is a collection of his best 2014 columns and is available for Nook and Kindle.

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