Beyond Age

WHEN IT COMES TO DOWNTON ABBEY, people either WATCH Downton Abbey or they don’t. For those of who WATCH it, we know that every episode will leave us wanting more, tempting us to wish away a week of our life waiting for the next Sunday night, and the next episode of some of the best screenwriting ever.

In a post last Thursday, I wrapped up with this:

“Tomorrow at Noon, I will be having lunch with some of my favorite people. One is 20-something, one is 30-something, one is 60-something and the other is 80-something. I plan to ask them how they feel about being a part of a multi-generational collaboration. I’ll let you know how it turns out.”

So maybe it wasn’t the kind of cliffhanger that had people talking around the coffee pot Monday morning, but who knows, maybe someone wants to know how it turned out.

We gathered a few minutes after noon at this amazing little Guatamalan cafe in Oklahoma City called Cafe Antigua. Two of the group couldn’t make it—the 60-something and the 80-something.

So it was me, representing the Baby-Boomers, a 20-something athletic/outdoorsy/artist named Molly, and a 30-something bold/brash/creative-entrepreneur named Kathleen.

L to R: Molly, Pops, Kathleen. Now I know what to do when they say, "duck lips"!

I tried to explain to them my intrigue and interest in multi-generational friendships. I gave a few great examples of the power of multi-generational collaborations.

We talked about blessings and curses of cross-generational stuff. You know: “Generation Gaps”, differences in style and values, communication issues and the like.

Kathleen mentioned that while she did enjoy some conversation with older people (like me), she didn’t want them for clients. (FYI: Kathleen is one of the best, most creative and intuitive branding persons I’ve ever encountered.) Her reason: “Older people just don’t get it.” She’s right you know. On the flip side, I’ve often been tempted to jerk the smartphone out of the hands of millennial or two and throw it in the nearest toilet, because sometimes; they just don’t get it.

Without a doubt, there is a time and a season for multi-generational conversation and a time for segregation too. When it’s right though, it can be a wonderful thing.

Molly said, “Sometimes the common thread is the interest, not the age.” Then she gave an example. Molly is an avid climber. By that I mean she practices in a climbing gym several days a week, and then travels somewhere most every weekend to climb with friends. She told us that on these climbing trips you will find everyone from young teens to older adults from all walks of life, gathered around the common interest of climbing, hiking and being outdoors.

Kathleen who now has a young son talked of the value of having a multi-generational tribe to help connect the dots in our human story. “I want to know if people think about dying. Are they afraid of dying?” I told her that I agree with Woody Allen who said, “I’m not afraid of dying, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” I don’t know if Kathleen is afraid of dying or not, but I do know this: she is NOT afraid of living! She has made be braver too.

For me that’s one of the coolest things about having a multi-generational tribe—the story. If you have people younger than you and people older than you, it’s like having more chapters in the book of your life story. It’s essential to have those who have gone before to help you make sense of it. And each of us who have been further down the path, if we do it with humility, can serve those who are younger by showing the way.

What if we were to step outside the normal and made something happen? What if we joined with some younger and some older and saw a movie together, or read a book together, or had coffee together, or told our stories together; or just listened to each other?

I hope that Molly and Kathleen know that I respect them and value their friendship, that I love hearing what they are up to whether it’s a climbing adventure or organizing a conference for creatives entrepreneurs in New Orleans. The old adage that if you want to stay young, hang out with young people is true. I hope the inverse is not true. I hope that by hanging out with older persons, these two and others will feel wiser and inspired and more courageous.

Oh, and if you aren’t one of those who WATCH Downton Abbey, you’re missing a great story about the power and beauty of multi-generations.

Stay tuned to About POPS. In a future post we’ll explore this issue: What’s Family Got To Do With It?!

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?