Didja Ever?
Did you ever think that you would …? Truthfully, when I
was 12 years old I was more worried about getting to thirteen. Today my twelve-year plan seems ambitious.
I don’t think you think about getting to eighty-five until you’re eighty-four. Even at thirty, forty seemed a long way away.
Recently I was thinking about hosting a party when I turned eighty-five. Truth is, there aren’t many people in the same age bracket to invite. Too many long-time friends have moved to warmer climates, moved to senior assisted living, or moved on to …
So what accounts for some of us making it to a ripe old
age while others don’t? There were twelve of us in my eighth-grade class.
Seven of us still communicate occasionally during the year. A good number of
high school classmates still send out the occasional email. Some, through no
fault of their own, receive the occasional rant from an audacious blogger. I’ve
noticed a lot of occasional occupies in the later years.
Some say genes have a lot to do with the aging process. That may be part of the equation. I’ll accept it since my biological father reached ninety-four without much trouble. He had a good ten-year plan too.
With absolutely no attempt at in-depth research, ("l'audace, toujours l'audace,”) I’m thinking that making it to thirty is pure dumb luck. If you can stay out of a shooting war, live in a safe area, work in a safe environment, and don’t act too stupid, your chances are reasonably good. You can stay out of a shooting war unless your number comes up, you can move to a safer neighborhood if you have to, and you can change jobs if you don’t feel safe. Stupid is another story. You can’t fix stupid! (I’ve waited years to use that cliché.)
The early years were easier. We lived in a nice quiet town in the mountains of Vermont. Quiet was an understatement. Family, church, school, scouts, and college made up most of our lives, the better part of Eisenhower’s calm leadership. Life was predictable for middle-class French-Canadian families in a town with a large French-Canadian population; French church, French school, French hospital, French friends, until it wasn’t. After attending an all-boys school for eight years, taught by nuns mostly from Canada, entering the local high school with men and women lay teachers, and girls was a bit of a shock. I still remember the first period of my first day at that school. The teacher asked me to multiply numbers and letters. It had to be a trick question, right? He called it algebra. I adjusted less quickly than my counterparts. I’m still working on it.
After college, I taught school for a few years and then moved into the business world. My first gig was as a trainer for a commodity brokerage firm. They wanted a school teacher who didn’t know how to trade pork bellies and soybeans or copper. I was the perfect choice. That led to training positions at a couple of chemical companies. When the call came from my former boss to move to San Francisco as Director of Training for a major drug distributor, we made the hard decision. We would go for two years, soak up some California sun and lifestyle, and then go back to St. Louis. That was fifty years ago this month, Didja Ever?
That period between twenty-four and forty years is always a whirlwind. Commuting to The City every day, constant flights cross country, and up and down the country, weekends at the kids' activities, and just trying to keep up. Didja ever think you would make it to forty?
I never really thought about it. I should have paid better attention. In April of that year I collapsed at a meeting I was facilitating; gangrenous gall bladder it was. Later in October, I had open heart surgery, a big deal back then, triple bypass. The doctor told me it was good for about twelve or thirteen years. I’d say he exceeded customer expectations. Didja ever think about making it to fifty? Yes!
I was thinking about retiring at sixty or sixty-five when my employer decided that a bunch of us fifty-five-year-olds had outspent our usefulness. They thought I would do better as an independent consultant. I had been with them for twenty years, but I’ve been collecting retirement checks for thirty years, so far. Getting older is the best revenge.
Ya, but didja ever think about getting to eighty-five. Not until I was eighty-four. It seems that special events get closer as one ages. “He’s forty, that’s a big one. We should have a party. He’s fifty. Wow, let’s have a fifty’s party. He’s sixty. That’s a big one too. He’s sixty-five… He’s seventy… He’s seventy-five … “ and it goes on. The gathering at eighty-seven should be a barn burner. Didja ever think about being ninety. Starting to.
I went to the doctor the other day. He thought my odds were good. He said I was in good shape for the shape I’m in (cliches abound) and the age I’m carrying, despite parts giving up or slowing down, or getting heavier. I had to fill out a questionnaire about how much alcohol I drank. I asked him if two glasses of wine with dinner were too much. “What the hell, at your age, enjoy.” I’m trying to make that into a positive. I’m not happy when he laughs at my ten-year plan.
I’m not sure why I’m worked up over this whole thing. Most of my grade school and high school classmates and friends from back then are a year older than me and seem OK with it all. But the statistics are a bit scary. Only 21% of men in the U.S. make it to eighty-five. It’s a bit weird, but nearly 20% also make it to ninety years old. But only six percent make it to one hundred years old. So a ten-year plan seems reasonable but a fifteen-year plan is a stretch and will need some effort. Didja ever think about making it to one hundred? I’ll worry about that when I hit ninety-five.
In the meantime, if two glasses of wine with dinner are OK, three might be better.
Chuck Woods
April 1, 1939 –
