Monday is my birthday. I don't say any of what I'm about to say in a nostalgic the-good-ole-days sort of a way. I do not think that these times I recall were any better than the way things are now. For that matter, this present time, even with all its challenges, is the best time of my life. I wouldn't go back for anything. This is just reminiscing and is not any sort of pining away for days-gone-by.
How old am I? I'm old enough that the first phone I remember was our heavy, black telephone. It sat on a narrow shelf between the dining room and the kitchen. This one didn't even have a dial. It was just the base with a receiver. When you picked it up there was no dial tone; the operator asked, "Num-buh puleeze " and you gave her the four digit number you were calling. She then manipulated her plugs and wires to make the connection on the other end. I'm old enough to remember that this phone was on a party line with about five other families. It would certainly have been easy enough to eavesdrop, but I don't remember ever wanting to do that. What Cuzzin' Lizzie was up to was not interesting to me in the first place. I doubt they were interested in my conversations either. I do remember when every so often a neighbor would pick up and say, "David, do you mind hanging up and letting me have the phone?" "Of course not, we were about through talking anyway. Goodbye." Then when they became available, we upgraded to a black phone with a dial. We were still on a party line, but now instead of using an operator we had a dial tone and we dialed the four digit number ourselves. After we went to seven digits, there was nothing worse than having that last number slip from your finger, the dial spin to a stop and having to start all over. I'm old enough to remember when a "long-distance-call" was an emergency situation. The one who answered would go tearing through the house, "Daddy, it's long distance! It's long distance!" I mean, how much more could it have cost? And did we have no money at all to pay the toll? That I don't remember. What I do remember is that a long-distance-telephone-call was a last resort. It was just not something we did very often. And when we did, we kept it short and sweet.
How old am I? I'm old enough to remember taking trips across the country without a phone. The only phone we had was in the kitchen attached to the wall by a six foot cord. Obviously, that wasn't all that many years ago, but in some ways that seems as far away and as archaic as that black phone without a dial. Now if I realize I've left my phone at home when I'm just driving across town, I go back home and get it. The "what ifs" of being on the road without a cell phone just go on and on.
How old am I? I'm old enough to remember our first television, black and white of course. We only got three channels, the three networks. The antenna was on a tall aluminum pole outside. When we changed channels somebody had to go outside and twist the pole to get the right signal for that channel. I don't remember how we knew how far to twist it. I mean it's not like my brother was standing at the front door relaying messages to me at the antenna from my father standing at the television. "Just a little more clockwise. No back. That's good!" I really don't know how we knew. And when it was raining, I guess we watched the same channel. I'm old enough to remember when we got a box to put on top of the TV with a button that turned the antenna so that we didn't have to go outside. Oh the joys of modern technology. Now when it rained, we had three channels. I'm old enough to remember when my great aunt got the family's first color television. Living Color, you know with the peacock that spread its colorful feathers. We would always go to her house to watch the Macy's Day Parade in Living Color. Then when her sister, my grandmother, got her color television we would stop by after Sunday night church to watch Bonanza. And no matter if the TV was black and white or color at eleven o'clock pm, it went off. All the networks played only a test signal. And sometimes if I didn't have anything else to do, I just watched that.
How old am I? I'm old enough to remember using S&H Green Stamps. I spent many blissful hours licking, separating and pasting those stamps in Mother's books. I tried to keep the lines straight so that they didn't overlap at the bottom.. And I remember how exciting it was to ride with her to the Green Stamp store in downtown Enterprise to redeem them. I guess it's the same thrill my granddaughter gets redeeming her coupons at Dave and Buster's. Well, I hope it's just as exciting.
How old am I? I'm old enough to remember when we left our house to go the beach for a week, we didn't bother to lock the doors. It never concerned any of us that someone would go in our house and take any of our stuff. And in all those years, we never returned home to find a single thing missing. So then was it a better time? It was a different time.
How old am I? I'm old enough to remember my mom rubbing Vicks VapoRub on my chest when I had a cold. And she would lean down and say, "I wish it was me instead of you." And she really did.
How old am I? I'm old enough to remember the summer times with my siblings and cousins at Granny's house. We played outside into the night, dancing with the lightning bugs and chanting our hide and seek game "Ain't no boogers out tonight, Grandpa killed them all last night." And the next day Granny would take a shovel and dig a pool in the shallow creek big enough for us to play in. Country grannies did stuff like that.
How old am I? Monday at around 2 am, I'll turn 64 years old. How and when that happened, I'm not sure. I don't feel 64. I still feel 34 or at the most 44. We run with some 30 somethings and their children. I think of myself as a peer to all of them. I forget that I am nearly twice the parents' ages and almost five times older than their children. If any of them think of me as old, they don't let on. They seem to genuinely enjoy my company. As an adolescent, I hope I gave the seniors in my life the same courtesy and respect.
Thankfully, I am in very good health, mentally and physically, and have every reason to expect many good years ahead of me. I say that humbly and respectful of the fact that things happen even to the healthiest of people. More and more people in the obituaries are younger than I am.
So I'm old enough to be learning to appreciate not just every day, but every moment of every day. This morning while on my back deck eating a bowl of cereal with blackberries, I was deeply grateful for the decades of peacefulness that deck has provided and for this house that we have called home for 31 years. That's nearly half my life. And as I tipped the bowl and drank the last drop of skim milk, I was keenly aware that someday in the not too distant future, someone else will be eating Cracklin' Oat Bran on this deck and I will be somewhere else. The doors will be locked and I won't have the key. Actuarially, I have much still to look forward to. But like the life insurance agents say, "Your birth certificate doesn't have an expiration date."
So anyway, Monday is my birthday. 64 years ago on Monday, against all odds, I was born. When you consider the process of conception, statistically my birth was nearly impossible. Recently I read in an article about the human genome that the probability that any of us were born gets into the thousands of trillions to one not too many generations up the ladder. It's like winning the Big Game Lottery fifteen times in a row. But I won. I'm here and I'm very grateful for that. Since I'm watching my figure I really don't care that much if ice cream and cake show up or not. If it does, I'll enjoy eating it. If it doesn't I'll enjoy eating something else. I hope to hug my wife. I hope to talk to my son, my daughter-in-law and my granddaughter in California. Who knows, I might get to talk to those 30 somethings. That would be nice. I enjoy those Facebook notifications you get on your birthday. Some of the comments are clever. But most of them just say, "Happy Birthday!".Either way I look at the name, consider the relationship and am grateful for the greeting. It's just social media, but it feels personal. And friendly.
When I applied for jobs over the years, the interviewer often asked me, "Where do you see yourself in five years?" If all goes according to plan, I see myself 69 years old and very happy. How old am I? I'm older than I was, but younger than I will be. A man showed his friend a photo and said, "Here's a picture of you when you were younger." And he replied, "Every picture of me is when I was younger". Happy Birthday David. It's shaping up to be the best birthday of your life.
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