Don’t Let the Old Man In
A number of years ago, the country singer and songwriter Toby Keith became acquainted with the actor, Clint Eastwood. Keith marveled at the energy and vitality of the soon-to-be 88-year-old movie star and asked him the secret to his robust longevity. Eastwood somewhat dryly answered, “Don’t let the old man in.”
Clint Eastwood & Toby Keith
The phrase struck a chord with Toby and, as he played with the words, the lyrics of a song slowly came to mind. The first stanza captures the essence of the song by warning that one must not too quickly surrender to life’s infirmities.
Don’t let the old man in
I want to live me some more
Can’t leave it up to him
He’s knocking on my door.
The words picture the struggle of a person facing old age who desperately attempts to hold off as long as possible life’s inevitable decline. I understand the lyrics not as a denial of our mortality, but rather as a refusal to surrender too easily to the debilitating effects of old age. It wasn’t long before the song became a top hit and was featured in Eastwood’s film, The Mule.
I’ve listened to “Don’t Let the Old Man In” many times and find the lines meaningful. I, too, am in the sunset of life, but I want to grow, learn, and develop as long as I have breath. Keith’s words encourage me to take advantage of each day I have on earth and never take for granted a single moment. Old age and death are unavoidable, but what’s important is how we live today.
Sooner or later, the door will be opened to the “old man” (old age and death), and our life on earth will end. We can slow down the aging process by living a healthy lifestyle, and staying active—aided by genetics—but we can’t put off indefinitely the inevitable. But we do control how we choose to live each day. Too many people open the door to the “old man” way before their time. They live as though rigor mortis has already taken hold.
You probably have run across people who are so frightened by the prospect of death that they forget to live. These people try to protect themselves from risks, new adventures, or anything that might threaten their well-being. But in trying to safe-guard their life, they end up nailing their coffin shut before they’re even dead.
I became friends with a middle-aged man early in my pastoral career who was convinced that death would take him at any moment. Not long before I met him, he had suffered a fairly serious heart attack, and was sure he had, at best, only months to live.
Several times I asked him to go to a ballgame with me, but he said he didn’t think his heart was strong enough, even though his medical team encouraged such outings. I dropped by his house on a number of occasions and offered to take him to lunch, but he always declined, stating that he was following a strict diet. The church elected him to be a deacon, but he did not accept on account of his heart condition.
For years, he repeatedly told me that his heart was severely damaged, and he didn’t know how much longer he had to live. He lived a protective and sheltered life, rarely venturing beyond the security of his home.
The years went by and my friend continued to limit his activities. Sixteen years later, after I had become pastor of a different congregation, a former staff member contacted me and told me that my friend had passed away. Ironically, his death was not due to his heart condition but from cancer. For over sixteen years my friend had insulated himself from the world, in a kind of self-imposed grave, for fear that his heart was too weak to engage with life. Instead, he sat in his self-made tomb and watched television day after day.
Toby Keith at The People’s Choice Country Awards, September 28, 2023
Toby Keith, on the other hand, heard the “old man” knocking on the door but refused to go quietly into the night. Not long after he wrote the lyrics to “Don’t Let the Old Man In,” Keith was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He underwent radiation, chemotherapy and an assortment of other treatments but the tumor inside his body continued to grow. His condition was beyond serious.
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The “old man” knocked but Keith refused to open the door. He worked tirelessly, even though he was sick, raising money for the Toby Keith Foundation—OK Kids Korral—a cost-free, convenient and comfortable home for pediatric cancer patients and their families. Located in Oklahoma City, the OK Kids Korral cares for hundreds of children with cancer each year and families never pay a dime. Keith could have spent his last months ensconced in a pity party, but instead, he used what time he had left to make the lives of people he didn’t even know better.
In December 2023, only a few months before his death, he performed in Las Vegas. Even though Keith had worked hard to prepare himself for the performance, he was only a skeleton of his former self. The song that drove everyone in the capacity crowd to reach for Kleenexes, as you may have guessed, was “Don’t Let the Old Man In.” With his wife in attendance, Keith voiced the words that expressed his deepest values:
Try to love on your wife
And stay close to your friends
Toast each sundown with wine
Don’t let the old man in.
In an interview shortly before his death, Keith expressed how his faith in God had strengthened him throughout his cancer ordeal. He knew that his time was short, but he had confidence that God would see him through. He had fought the good fight and kept the faith. He squeezed out every ounce of life before he let the old man in. What more can be asked of a human being?
