WHEN ARE YOU REALLY AN (A SENIOR) ADULT?

In 1964, Mick Jagger wailed, “Yes time, time, time is on my side, yes it is!” in a song The Rolling Stones covered called, “Time Is On My Side”. And at 14 years-old; that’s how I felt.

Today, as I turn the Big Six-Five; I have different feelings.

Back in college, I wrote a paper called “Adolescence: A Social Construct”. As I was thinking about adulthood and more specifically, “senior adulthood”, that paper came to mind. It dawned on me: don’t despair old man, you’re not being put out to pasture, this is nothing but a social construct (“a social mechanism, phenomenon, or category created and developed by society; a perception of an individual, group, or idea that is ‘constructed’ through cultural or social practice." —The Dictionary)

There are some points of time in our lives that seem more significant or notable than others: milestones, rites of passage, coming-of-age moments that we really look forward to and celebrate. For new little humans, we mark as important all their “Firsts”: first words, first steps, first tooth, first birthday. From there we sort of jump to things like the first day of school, then kindergarten graduation, complete with a ceremony, “diploma”, and a minature cap and gown.

Before long we’re finishing grade school and life throws us a mean curve ball: puberty and Junior High, and more firsts—first shave, first zit, first kiss, first dance, humiliation, awkwardness and all. Soon though, we get a handle on all of that and get on to the work of establishing our freedom and independence (sort of like when we were two).

From here we can see the adolescent holy grail: the driver’s license. Is it the license that makes Sixteen so “sweet”, or is it another social construct. I think if I could roll back the clock and do it again, I would go back to Sixteen, in the 60s, not now! I would not want to be a 16 year-old in 2016. I wish teens today could know the joy of being a kid without a mobile phone. But I digress, that’s what 65 year-olds do.

Soon we reach the “age of majority” where we are no longer minors. My age group was one of the first to be able to register to vote at 18 as opposed to 21. The main argument was that if we were old enough to be drafted and go to Vietnam, we were old enough to vote. In Oklahoma, in my day, only girls could buy beer at 18. Guys had to be 21. 

High School graduation! This is a big one. In a recent article I read in The Atlantic Magazine, called “When Are You Really An Adult”, the author likened the ceremonial “moving of the tassel” to flipping a switch assuming people move instantly into some form of adulthood.

“In fact, if you think of the transition to “adulthood” as a collection of markers—getting a job, moving away from your parents, getting married, and having kids—for most of history, with the exception of the 1950s and 60s, people did not become adults any kind of predictable way.

Karlee in her Mimi's shoes.

And yet these are still the venerated markers of adulthood today, and when people take too long to acquire them, or eschew them all together, it becomes a reason to lament that no one is a grown-up. While bemoaning the habits and values of the youths is the eternal right of the olds, many young adults do still feel like kids trying on their parents’ shoes.”

Some of us feel like adults who would love to try on our kids’ shoes. Not that I’m having regrets or have resigned, retired and given up. Not at all.

But, sometimes I feel like I’ve checked the boxes, like I need another passage to look forward to, other than the big one that is. You know, the one that goes through the valley.

This year I resolved to not make new year’s resolutions, but I did make a list of things I plan to do everyday this year. Maybe if I reach my goal, I’ll have a graduation event of some sort. If I do, I’ll invite you to the after-party. We’ll party like it’s 1969!

Oh, here’s my list if you care to join me:

• Walk
• Eat properly
• Pray
• Laugh hard
• Love
• Meditate
• Stretch
• Do something good
• Do something well
• Read
• Hug & kiss
• Turn off the TV sometimes
• Drink
• Play
• Sleep
• Learn
• Be amazed

While time may not be on my side, I wouldn’t trade the journey I’ve been on for all the joy and angst and hormones of youth again. Social construct or not, I’m embracing my senior-adultness (sort of).

And now a quote from one of my favorite fellow travelers, a senior herself:

“It’s funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools - friendships, prayer, conscience, honesty - and said ‘do the best you can with these, they will have to do’. And mostly, against all odds, they do.” 
― Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

We Three Grand-Girls

And behold three Grand-Girls came from the east bearing gifts: light, warmth, and attitude, making their Pops' Christmas wishes come true.

Photos by: Molly Hennesy. 

Read It Again

I'VE TRIED BUT I JUST CAN'T DO IT; NOT YET ANYWAY. I have a friend who challenged me to choose six books. Here’s how the challenge went down: If you had to choose six books to be the only books you would have on your shelf to read from now on, what would they be?

“Comme l’on serait savant si l’on connaissait bien seulement cinq ou sìx livres.”

— Flaubert

Translated: “What a scholar one might be if one knew well only some half a dozen books.”

Obviously the Bible would be first. Not because I’m holy or anything, but because it has everything in one book: mystery, intrigue, poetry, philosophy, love story, history, science, etc.

“You can’t choose the Bible. In fact, let’s narrow it down to novels, literary fiction.”

Even as a kid I loved to read and be read to. When I think about this challenge of picking just six books, I think, “Why?” But kids prove that stories can be read again and again and again and again. In fact, I can hear my Grand-Girls now: “Read it again, Pops.” 

karlee and pops

Growing up, once I began reading beyond picture books, my list-of-six would have included: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Call of the Wild, Treasure Island and City High Five.

But then, the Call of the Cool came in early adolescence. And you couldn’t be caught reading or admitting you really liked reading. You would be pummelled with your copy of Red Badge Of Courage. And then there were those books that teachers insisted we read…

“Nothing ruins a book faster than a teacher who insists it is important.”

— Alex Miller Jr.

Some teachers I trusted. Some teachers would make you read a certain book (by assignment and threat). Some teachers would make you want to read a certain book (by there obvious love for the story).

Why is it important to have six books (or whatever number) that you could and will read again and again? Because one of the things that makes a great story a great story is that you can hear it over again, and it is fresh and compelling each time. And then there’s this, from The New York Review of Books:

The ideal here, it seems, is total knowledge of the book, total and simultaneous awareness of all its contents, total recall. Knowledge, wisdom even, lies in depth, not extension. The book, at once complex and endlessly available for revisits, allows the mind to achieve an act of prodigious control. Rather than submitting ourselves to a stream of information, in thrall to each precarious moment of a single reading, we can gradually come to possess, indeed to memorize, the work outside time.

As I said at the start, I can’t quite whittle the list to six; yet. But I do have it to eight. Oh, as you read my list, don’t judge me. I’m not in seventh grade anymore, your judgement doesn’t matter to me, but I would love to hear your opinions and your list. I’ve shared my emerging list with a few people. Some of have questioned whether some of these qualify as “classics”. That’s not one of the criteria. Remember, this is about books you could read again and again.

Specifically, I’ve been critized for having Catcher in the Rye on my list. It is, in fact, a book I read about once a year, and have for years. One said: “Jane Eyre! Isn’t that a chick book?” I hit him over the head with my copy. And if you’re familiar with Jane Eyre you know it (the book, not Jane herself) is large and packs a wallop.

So, [drum roll] here’s the list, not necessarily in any order:

• To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
• For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
• Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

What's on your list?

Grand-Fathering

PICTURE WITH ME an idyllic, mythic tableau of grandparenting. You know the ones that look like the “after” picture of prescription medication ads, not the ones where he’s plagued with those pesky side effects like: constipation, diarrhea, rash, swelling of hands, feet and face, wheezing, irratibility, increased appetite, night sweats and visions of Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in the Whitehouse.

In the first frames of these ads, gramps is relegated to the porch with an elephant sitting on his chest while the rest of the family is frolicking in the yard. But, then he takes his meds for HBP, COPD, ED, ADD, RA and XYZ. Now he’s splitting wood, and throwing another log on the campfire, where the kids are roasting marshmallows for s’mores. He gives grandma a knowing wink and a nuzzle, and thinks how much better the whole scene would be if he could light up a pipe and have a scotch. Then he notices something at the edge of the campfire’s glow: it’s Norman Rockwell and Thomas Kinkade painting the whole scene. “I’m so glad I put on my clean cardigan and remembered to zip up!” he thinks to himself.

When you are of a generation that grew up with programs like Father Knows Best, Ozzie & Harriett, Leave It To Beaver, etc., you think of things like this.

Perhaps you’re aware that I am the grandfather to three grands; all girls. AKA, Pops and the Grand-Girls. It is a role I cherish. But, I will admit that sometimes I don’t feel adequate to this high calling. It has to do with gender roles. Don’t panic! This isn’t veering off to some weird place.

I know it’s old fashioned, but my culture has created in me some expectations and understandings—right or wrong. For example, when I think about rites-of-passage, the connections between a grandfather and grandson seem really obvious. A grandfather can teach the boy to shine shoes, oil his ball glove, bait a hook. He can buy his grandson his first pocket knife and teach him how to play mumbley peg or “dissect” a frog.

But who are we kidding here? There is nothing a granddad could pull out of his bag of tricks that will break the trance-like spell an iPad or video game has on a wee lad.

The fact is, I wouldn’t trade my three Grand-Girls for all the boys in the tri-state area. Turns out I love going to the ballet with them. We all love to read. And even though I don’t know an Elsa from an Anna, I’m still invited to sit in the floor and “play” Frozen. We go to museums together and weirdly enough we all like Chick-fil-a and dark chocolate. Who knew?

Sometimes, when spending quality time with the girls, I will suggest an activity, a game, or maybe a plot line and characters for an evolving make-believe story.

Sometimes, my ideas are met with enthusiasm.

Sometimes, not so much.

Sometimes, the creative juices are running way ahead of me.

Often times, our best times together are where memories are made.

the grand-girls at uncle kyle's graduation