I think young people tend to forget, or simply ignore, the birthdays of their elders under the mistaken belief that anyone that old wouldn't want to be reminded of it. Here they're wrong. Older folks are really more like little children and take secret pride in their advancing age.
Remember when you were a kid and someone asked, “How old are you...five or six?” How did you respond? “I’m six and a half!” To be seen as only five was a huge insult, and six simply wasn’t good enough. You wanted everyone to know exactly how old you really were. Of course, at that age the years crawled by, so half-years were far more meaningful.
We old folks are much the same. 30 years ago I never would have asked a woman her age. But here in The Villages, they don’t give me a chance to ask. I need only say, “Hi, how are you today?”, and I’m greeted with, “Wonderful! Not bad considering I turn 79 next week.” What do you say to that? You have to say something. Here it’s best to remember how seniors and little kids differ. Both are proud of their actual age, but kids want you to think they’re older, while seniors want to be known as old but viewed as younger. Probably the safest response is something like, “79! You’re kidding! You can’t be 79.” That covers all the bases.
Of course birthdays are linked to time itself, and for me, time is probably the most intriguing aspect of God’s creation of space and time. (Read St. Augustine's Confessions, chapter 11 for one of the better discussion on this.)
When it comes to space, we can revisit places again and again. They might have changed a bit over time, but they’re still there and usually still recognizable. If I’m planning a future trip to a new place, I can even call up Google Earth and check it out. Oddly, although I’m actually looking at the past as it appears on my computer screen, for me it’s more a peek into the future, a glimpse of the place I intend to visit.
It’s with time that things get a bit messy. We can’t reclaim the past because it’s irretrievable, but we can call it back as a memory.
My earliest memories are quite early. I remember watching my dad and brother playing in the snow in our backyard in rural Nichols, Connecticut when I was only two years old...well, ok, two years and five months old. I was sitting with my mom at our bay window looking out at the two of them and wanting so badly to join them. Years later, when I described this memory to my mother, she was amazed that I could recall that day. “You had a bad cold,” she said, “I was very worried about you, and wouldn’t let you go outside. My gosh! That was in February 1947, and you remember that?” Yep.
I have quite a few memories of my third year, again all in Connecticut. I’ve always been an early riser. Even as a young child, I would awaken long before everyone else, leave my room, and sit down in the hallway at the top of the stairway. There I’d be joined by our dog, a German Shepherd named Clipper. He and I would lie down, my head resting on his side, while I rattled on, sharing my thoughts. Clipper was a tolerant beast and feigned interest. Often my voice would waken my parents (I’ve never been a quiet talker) and Dad would come into the hallway and ask me, “Who are you talking to?” I, of course, thought that a silly question and simply said, “Clipper.” I have many other memories of Clipper, a terrific dog whose only vice was his uncontrollable desire to kill our neighbor’s chickens.
Birthdays generate other thoughts. I was born in 1944, so someone who was my current age then -- 76 years old -- was born in 1868, just a few years after the end of the Civil War. If we repeat this exercise and go back another 76 years, we find ourselves in the year 1792, when the French Revolution was in full bloodbath mode, setting the stage for the far bloodier revolutions of the 20th century.
Speaking of the French Revolution, when I was 13 I met a 96-year-old man born in 1861 in Philadelphia. His grandfather had left France in a hurry in the midst of the revolution because as an apprentice cabinet maker his shop in Paris had made furniture for French royals. For the revolutionaries this apparently was a capital offence. Born in 1776, he was only 17 years old when he made his way to America thanks to a gift from a wealthy friend. Arriving in Baltimore, he managed to find work in Philadelphia, again as a cabinet maker. He died in 1870, at the age of 94. (His grandson attributed the family's longevity to the daily consumption of French wines.)
But that's just the background. The interesting part of the story began when the grandson told me his grandfather had made some furniture for Thomas Jefferson and visited Monticello on several occasions during the early 1800s. The old man had also told him many more stories of meeting other famous Americans during our nation's infancy. That's when it hit me. Old age and the compression of time placed me just two people away from our founding fathers.
Maybe 80 years from now, one of my grandchildren will tell stories to his grandchildren of that strange year, 2020, and what his aging grandfather told him about a world so very different from the world they'll be facing then.
Cherish the memories, friends. Share them and let the past live in the minds and hearts of those who follow.
God's peace...and a Happy Birthday to all others who may be celebrating today.
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