As you get older, three things happen. The first is your memory goes, and I can’t remember the other two. – Norman Wisdom
(Formerly Annual Birthday Essay: Re-tooled 2013 Version)
I was sitting in Kohl’s the other day waiting patiently after my wife had dragged me off to the mall. I was studying the massive Duck Dynasty display, thinking if I still had a job I might buy one of their ties. But no chance of getting a bearded doll which says “Happy, Happy, Happy” if you squeeze its tummy. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a grizzled old guy staring at me. He looked mean and when I began to stare back, I realized the guy was my reflection.
Could I really have been born in the first half of the last century?…. I actually like being old. Especially if the painkillers have kicked in. And there are no mirrors. For fun, I might tell my young friends tales about the days before rock ‘n’ roll. When How Much Is That Doggy In The Window? topped the charts. Or how the first time I ate yogurt, I was at the United Nations, because back then only foreigners ate yogurt. Then just yesterday, I was sitting in a gerontologist’s office, holding my Medicare card, listening to my MP3 player and checking my iPhone. But I ramble….
My attempt at becoming a male model.
When I was a much younger man – 42 – my parents gave me an original copy of the New York Times for December 24, 1946, my birth date. The paper cost three cents when published. Times have changed; bought the same publication just last Friday for $2.50.
And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years. – Abraham Lincoln
Much has changed. Back then, at all Horn & Hardart Automats, you could get a Christmas Day Special of selected young turkey, roasted to a golden turn by expert chefs, for 80 cents. Dinner included savory filling, giblet gravy, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and carrots. Gives some historical perspective to today’s 99-cent menu at the local drive-thru.
In youth, we run into difficulties. In old age, difficulties run into us.- Beverly Sills.
Northwest Orient Airlines had seats available on their four-engine, 44-passenger luxury service from New York City to Portland, Oregon, for just $118.30 plus tax. I am guessing the stewardesses were young and pretty and you would get a halfway decent meal at no additional charge. Oh, and your bags rode for free. The bad news was the flight took 15 hours and 25 minutes.
You can live to be a hundred, if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred. – Woody Allen.
Prices were low, but so were salaries. In 1946, 47% of American families had an annual income of less than $2,000. In the classifieds, under Help Wanted-Female, bookkeepers were being offered $35-$45 weekly. Another ad, this one in Help Wanted – Male, asked for “BKKPR, alert, commanding personality, managerial timber; $50 start.” An alert male was probably harder to find.
I didn’t get old on purpose, it just happened. If you’re lucky, it could happen to you. – Andy Rooney.
The president of the New York Stock Exchange had just received a raise to $40,000 annually. RADIO – that was the name of the company – led the most active trading list at 19,300 shares. Total volume was 1,170,000. (Today, every day, NYSE trading volume can exceed three billion.) In 1946, on Christmas Eve, radio – the communications medium – was the most popular form of commercial entertainment. That and pro whittling. A half page of the N.Y. Times was devoted to a schedule of programs hosted by such superstars as Rudy Valee, Arthur Godfrey, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Red Skelton and Amos & Andy. Not exactly The Morning Zoo.
How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you was? – Satchel Paige.
A basketball game between Duquesne and Tennessee was called off when the Volunteers refused to take the floor unless assured Charles Cooper, the Negro freshman star, would not play for the Dukes. More than 2,600 fans were already in the gymnasium when the cancellation was announced.
If I’d known I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself. – Eubie Blake. Also Mickey Mantle.
An advertisement for the Capitol movie theater promoted Claudette Colbert and Walter Pidgeon in MGM’s “The Secret Heart.” That sentimental gentleman Tommy Dorsey, complete with his trombone and an augmented orchestra of 40 – plus comedian Jack Carter – was appearing in person. The ad reads… “Parents! Is your daughter a problem child? Must her romantic ideals agree with yours or may she follow her own heart? Girls! Are your parents’ ideas of love and life old-fashioned?”
There was no respect for youth when I was young, and now that I am old, there is no respect for age. I missed it coming and going. – J. B. Priestly.
I guess change is relative. I have long been amazed by one woman’s experience. When my grandmother was three years old, the Wright brothers flew the first airplane 120 feet. Just sixty-six years later, Grandma watched as Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. My next few years could be interesting.
Old age is an excellent time for outrage. My goal is to say or do at least one outrageous thing every week. – Louis Kronenberger.
Try to travel like I’m Walter White. On the deck of our room on Cedar Key.
I’ll be honest with you… I have never twerked. At least, I don’t think I have. I care little what the “new millenials” have to say about foreign affairs and when I hear about the “young invincibles”, I think how they are in for a big surprise. Meanwhile, on a good day, parts of me feel practically unused. My first book When Running Was Young and So Were We won some respectable acclaim and I am just back from a 5.4 mile jog. I listen to Wiz Khalifa and Little Wayne because it keeps me young. I am married for the same reason…. Right now, I’m gonna take a nap. – JDW