Smash the futurescope

One of my favorite English professors at the University of Georgia in the late 1970s was an old, balding gentleman who taught Shakespeare. At the time, I thought he was older than dirt.

He would periodically remove what I would call spectacles, wipe them off and muse: “As one gets older, one gets more autobiographical.”

He was an excellent teacher and I found him kind and extremely smart. And as I get older, I too get more autobiographical.

Sunday is my 57th birthday, remarkable to me because I realized the late musician Prince was also 57 when he died on April 21.

That did make me stop for minute. Prince was 57??!!!

That’s where any similarities end. He was also filthy rich and stood 5-feet 2-inches tall. And, oh yes, he was talented.

The artist who was formerly known as alphabet soup had also apparently failed to draw up a will. That issue will be a bigger problem for his loved ones than mine if I fail to act responsibly. I simply don’t have that much to bequeath the rest of the Colombo clan.

It is common as we age to evaluate our lives from time to time. If we think about it too hard and too long, it is easy to end up in a crisis.

It is my belief that God did us a kindness by not allowing us to mysteriously see the future. Our perceptions of how life is going to be when we are young might not match the reality of time, and even though we might have been blessed, our younger selves might not see it that way.

I wonder what 19-year-old Mike Colombo might have thought about 57-year-old Mike Colombo’s life if he could have seen it through a “futurescope.”

My wife and I were talking the other night about our nearly 38- year- old relationship and how things have changed.

“You’re not the same person you were then,” said the woman I love dearly.

That phrase has always struck me as a cliche, but Mrs. Colombo is correct: I am not the same person and neither is she. No one is from 19 to 57, and that’s not a bad thing. Life changes us, and if we trust God and the people who love us, life can make us better people.

If Mike Colombo from 1978 looked through the futurescope to 2016, his first comment would undoubtedly be: “Damn, where did all my hair go?”

The futurescope would show me at work, and living in a palatial homestead on Robin Hood Road, but how would past Mike Colombo assess how I feel about my life now?

THAT Mike Colombo might be unhappy about what he sees without realizing that THIS Mike Colombo is thankful for where he is.

In Sunday school we recently discussed the parable of the Prodigal Son, which I prefer to call the parable of the Ungrateful Older Brother.

Everyone knows about the wayward son who squandered his inheritance in what the Bible calls “riotous living.” But the conclusion of the parable is even more important. The older “good son” won’t William Brown, TCA

come into the party for the younger son after his father welcomes him back.

When humans read that parable, we automatically side with the older brother, who has done what his dad asked. Because, after all, we are the good ones, aren’t we?

Perhaps, but like the older brother, we too, sometimes are hampered by not being truly thankful.

Beth asked me what kind of cake or pie I wanted for my birthday. After having a comprehensive blood test a few weeks ago, I told her not to make either. While my spiritual self might or might not be growing as I age, my cholesterol and triglyceride levels certainly are.

Hopefully, by the time this column runs I will have purchased a second kayak and perhaps we will spend part of my birthday floating down the Etowah River.

Such a pastoral experience may seem lame to 19-year-old Mike Colombo looking through the futurescope. But I don’t care what he thinks. He was a jerk.