It was a very good year — a lot of them, in fact
“It Was a Very Good Year” may have been introduced by the Kingston Trio, but it’s likely that you remember the Frank Sinatra rendition. That, indeed, is the background music that is nostalgically accompanying my writing these recollections.
Time passes and birthdays and anniversaries come and go, some more significant than others. When you are young, the 16th, 18th and 21st birthdays have particular significance, although their importance is likely different today from what it was when I was young.
“Sweet 16 and never been kissed,” was released in 1932. Does anyone say that anymore; does it have any relevance or resonance? Sixteen was the year when you became aware of the opposite sex. Today, of course, it need not be the opposite and an earlier age might be more common.
When I was 18, living in New York, I could legally drink a beer; I doubt many 18-year-olds thought about ordering a martini, but, that, too, was perfectly legal. In neighboring Connecticut, you still had to wait another three years.
At 21, I was able to cast my first vote for president; I voted for the reelection of Dwight D. Eisenhower. I haven’t always picked a winner since that first time.
Today, those age milestones have reversed their meaning and significance. The 26th Amendment, ratified in 1971, states that the right to “vote shall not be denied or abridged” to anyone “eighteen years of age or older.” But, in no state can you legally drink before you are 21. I think that they got that wrong. Perhaps, guided by neurological studies that suggest that causal reasoning is only fully developed by about age 25, no one under that age should be allowed either to drink or vote. Note, however, in all these age-related restrictions and allowances, age is only an often unreliable proxy for maturity.
When I was 24, on a blind date in Boston with a slightly older young woman who asked my age, I lied, and said that I was 28. I found that I liked being 28, and stayed that age for another four or five years. In graduate school, I told my friend Jose, who had just turned 30, that 30 was only a state of mind, something to be ignored. He sadly responded that it was difficult not to be in that state of mind when you turned 30. For me, that birthday passed without notice. But, it was only later that “Don’t trust anyone over 30” became a conviction spread nationwide from Berkeley, California.
I do remember turning 40, possibly because a friend welcomed me into my fifth decade. I hadn’t thought about it in those terms; I had always been led to believe “life begins at 40.”
I associate “50 and nifty” with Marcello Mastroianni and “La Dolce Vita,” but I was still a long way from that birthday when I first saw the Fellini film. It’s not a birthday I remember, but it’s reputed to be the new 40.
I was temporarily living in China when my 25th wedding anniversary came and went. I sent a postcard with anniversary greetings to my wife, who was staying at home with the kids, expressing the hope that we could do our 50th together. And, we did, 25 years later, just the two of us, at a small intimate restaurant in Maastricht. I don’t think a 75th anniversary is within reach.
Alone in Maastricht, in an earlier year, I celebrated my 75 birthday. I was disappointed that neither my wife nor three sons remembered what I thought was a significant birthday. I did, however, receive a bright orange voetbal shirt from my Dutch hosts with a “75” prominently displayed on the back of the shirt. My middle son now wears it when watching World Cup matches with some of his soccer fan buddies.
And now the days are short, I’m in the winter of the year.
Soon 90, I may now be too old to run for the presidency. Indeed, I would be the oldest person ever to run, and 95, if I made it, by the end of my term of office. So, I must unequivocally discourage my supporters from advancing my candidacy. “I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected.” You may fervently wish that two other old men would follow my example.