Friday, June 17, 2005

Turning Fifty

A colleague recently celebrated his fiftieth birthday, and after cake and presents his playful wife handed him a special envelope.  It wasn’t a handmade card bearing the signatures of those who love him most in the world, it wasn’t a posh gift certificate, and it wasn’t a pair of tickets to his favorite sporting event. It was his first mailing from AARP, the organization of seniors formerly known as the American Association of Retired People. AARP craftily sends out letters of welcome to folks who are turning fifty, offering a variety of member services and telling each recipient, “Hey, you’re one of us now.”

Insecurity about age has been widespread in our culture for some time.  Long ago, and for many years, comedian Jack Benny gave his age as thirty-nine. If you remember that running joke, then you might be thirty-nine yourself, in just the same way that Mr. Benny was. When Benny poked fun at himself that way he was lightly mocking our insecurity about growing older. Some of that insecurity is valid, while some is completely arbitrary.  Why should fifty be the big scary number, after all?  If we used a different numbering system, the fiftieth year would be unremarkable: “Last year I was seven squared years old, and that was okay, but this year I turned five squared times two, so of course it really hit me hard.” See, it’s arbitrary – fifty is only a big deal if you record your age in base ten.

Yet the aging itself is real, no matter how lightly we hope to take it. At the card shop the other day I came across one that said, “You’ve turned fifty – the good news is that Congress has designated you a national treasure.  The bad news is that they haven’t allocated any money for your upkeep.” And we’re going to need the upkeep. At a recent birthday party for a pre-teen, while the young people were snarfing down angel food cake, fresh berries, and whipped cream, most of the adults stood around trading stories about their colonoscopies.  Thankfully, nobody pulled out their snapshots.

This year I got my first letter from AARP, and my family gave me a weekend trip to Indianapolis. We walked around downtown, ate in good restaurants, went to the zoo and to museums, and otherwise had a fine time.  We rented a funny bicycle built for four with a red fringed top, and we rode along the canal in the afternoon. The sun shone down on us and a light breeze lifted our spirits as we peddled among the pedestrians, skaters, and bikers there. Life, even for a person of my advanced age, seemed pretty good.

Near the end of our ride we turned a corner and cycled past a mirrored building.  I caught a glimpse of the family – the truly youthful children, my wife who will, if I’m not mistaken, have the energy and optimism of the young for the next several decades.  And there steering the crazy cycle, in a baseball cap, tan shorts, a colorful loose-fitting shirt, and sunglasses, was this middle-aged guy who looked for all the world like a dad. I guess it’s true, I’m fifty.

The other evening as I finished singing a lullaby to my youngest child, she reached up and started counting the wrinkles in my forehead.  “There are five grooves and six spaces in between them,” she said. I was hoping some wisdom would come along with those wrinkles, but instead I’ve just started to understand jokes about Lipitor.

Broadcast by Ken Smith on June 17, 2005
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