CHARLES WOOLEY
Celebrating his 70th birthday has made Charles reflect on where he’s at in his life.
This month I celebrated a milestone. Well to be precise it was a hundred of my friends and colleagues from near and far who did the celebrating. Prior to a few relaxing drinks I was less in celebratory mood and more in a state of shock and denial. “How did I get to be this old? What the hell have I done with all those years?”
My wife Donna had insisted there should be a great party but initially I felt I would have enjoyed it more had it been the fabulous 70th birthday for some other old fart. There I have managed to say it, ‘SEVENTY’. It is an unspeakable number for someone of my generation. When the babyboomer old farts were teenagers, a rock group called The Who sang their youthful anthem My Generation. The song was a comprehensive denunciation of our parent’s mob and without the slightest hint of self knowledge or irony declared, “I hope I die before I get old”.
And ‘old’ then was not what would be considered old now. John Lennon wasn’t the first to say, “Never trust anyone over 30,” nor was he the first to die young and consequently live forever. “Like Jesus”, he might have irreverently quipped, given that he once horrified the American Bible Belt with his somewhat accurate assessment back in the 1960s that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus.” Today, Lennon is still worshipped, even by kids but had he kicked on into his 70s like fellow Beatle, Paul McCartney he might’ve been thought to outstay his welcome. “Hey Grandpa John, when are you going to retire?”
I was shocked when my colleague at Channel 9, the incomparable Laurie Oakes (only a few years more ancient than me) retired to live on the beach, put up his feet and read his beloved detective novels. It was hard to believe that Australia’s foremost political reporter could ever give up the excitement and adrenaline of our increasingly discordant national parliament. But so far he has gone cold turkey. Not a peep out of him. No book, no commentary; he has successfully retreated from the world. I am unconvinced that he can remain in exile. I hope eventually we starve him out. He knows where the bodies are buried and we all miss his encyclopedic knowledge of political history. Journalism and our democracy are the poorer without his revered wisdom. He should not have retired.
The beach draws the ageing baby boomers. That doesn’t invoke a particularly attractive image, but I am finding many of my generational old farts are getting sand in their crocs. So perhaps we should change that 1960’s song line of The Who, from “I hope I die ...” to now read “I hope I drown before I get old.”
I tell myself it is mere coincidence that I am moving to the beach. My wife Donna has always wanted to live on the surf and I am simply going there with her. I’d hate to be part of an entirely predictable demographic: a lemming like shuffle of old farts driven by some supposed genetic imperative to return to the sea from whence our species evolved. Donna is a long way from old-fart-hood but recapturing the beach and the happy Sydney summer memories of childhood are certainly on her mind. I too am remembering joyful holidays in white cottages with blue trim on the Tamar River mouth at Low Head where blackback salmon played in the surf. But I’m telling myself all this is mere nostalgia, not a retreat from life. Carlton Beach is only 20 minutes from the office. My office has always been the nearest airport.
The tradies who come and go with mysterious and unpredictable timing at our renovation/demolition site must assume I am preparing for some kind of sandy senescence on the southern beaches. “When are you going to retire, Charlie?” they ask above the boom of the surf. These are blokes who have real jobs even though their hours are sometimes hard to determine. They climb on the roof and balance on scaffolding. They lift heavy weights and work in awkward positions. You wouldn’t want to do that into your 60s. For many Australians, if not most, work is a necessary and tedious evil along the road to an early retirement, the earlier the better.
When I left university I gave some thought to what I might do in life. I’d had a few part time jobs and even spent one term as a school teacher at Hobart’s Taroona High School aka Princess Mary College.
Early on I was able to sort work into two categories. Teaching and delivering mail were onerous tasks. I classified them as a ‘ARJ’: A Real Job.
Casual work in radio and papers was such fun the money didn’t matter. These occupations I classified as ‘not a real job’: a ‘NARJ’.
I determined in life to avoid the ARJ and embrace the NARJ. No wonder I first went to work with the ABC, which is still I suspect the ultimate NARJ.
And no wonder, if they don’t give me the flick, I will continue not to retire from my NARJ at Channel 9. Don’t tell the bosses but sometimes my job at 60 Minutes, the places they send me and the people I get to meet, is still so much fun I would do it for nothing.
The company chairman Peter Costello recently reminded me of his controversial edict when he was federal treasurer, “Mate you will work ‘til you drop.”
Now I am old enough to hope that is a promise and not a threat.
Appropriately the music for my birthday bash was provided by the Cravats, a wonderful 1960s Hobart group of septuagenarians still going strong and even able to remember the words. My younger Sydney friends loved them, though a few of the older farts thought they were “too loud.” The louder the better I reckon. So did one of my favourite poets, the Irishman William Butler Yeats who said it all;
An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered rag upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and louder sing
My ears have stopped ringing. I’ve recovered from the 70th birthday bash and I have resolved to keep on NARGing for a while longer. But fear not. I don’t intend to hang around, like my old mum Ella, until the age of 100.
I am still faithful to the spirit of The Who and all joking aside, “I hope I die before I get old.”