D-Day Veterans in Normandy

5. THEY DRESS PROPERLY
They never show up to the airport without a suit on. If it’s hot, they’ll have a seersucker with a perfectly broken-in straw fedora. 

I was at Chuck Pfeiffer’s 70th birthday party, and every male there was in a tailored suit. He was regaling all of Elaine’s with filthy stories of “the three Bs” (booze, broads, and blow) but if you were deaf, you’d think you were in a shareholder’s meeting.

6. THEY TELL GOOD JOKES
Because they come from a time when everyone who wasn’t a WASP deserved to be made fun of, old men have an endless list of zingers that sound like a celebrity roast for multiculturalism. The culmination of all these was beautifully expressed in Gran Torino when Walt Kowalski says, “A Mexican, a Jew, and a colored guy go into a bar. The bartender looks up and says, ‘Get the fuck outta here.’”

They also love hearing good jokes like nobody else. When I told an old guy the best line I ever wrote—“My only problem with women breastfeeding in public is they never wink back”—he died laughing and then dragged me around the bar making sure I told every guy there.

7. THEY DON’T CHEAT
The beauty of living in a world untouched by feminism is the men actually, sincerely, honestly, revere women. Your grandfather never cheated on your grandmother, and if his best friend cheated on his wife, he wouldn’t talk to the guy for forty years.

8. IF YOU CROSS THEM, YOU’RE DEAD TO THEM
There’s no sense apologizing and begging for forgiveness, and you probably should have thought of that before you opened your stupid goddamned mouth and called him a liar. He was telling the truth, you asshole, and it was for your own good.

As amazing old guy Horace Greeley put it back in olden times, “Fame is fleeting; popularity an accident; riches take wings. Only one thing endures: character.” Actions have consequences when you’re dealing with men of character.

9.  THEY TAKE PRIDE IN THEIR WORK
Whether it’s fixing a faucet or painting a birdhouse, these guys bring their handmade wood toolbox to the job, do it right the first time, and neatly put everything away when they’re done. If you can’t eat off an old guy’s workbench, he’s not an old guy.

10. THEY’RE THE REAL DEAL
While couch potatriots and armchair activists sit indoors screaming through their keyboards, old dudes are walking softly outside with a big stick. They’re not particularly fond of fags, but if the government decided all homosexuals must be killed immediately, the ragtag rebellion’s frontlines would be filled with old dudes. Platitudes such as, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” aren’t platitudes to old guys. They really will grab a gun and fight for you. They already did.