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The Golden Years
I just got something from the vending machine and received a quarter in change. The thing was so old and dirty to the point where you had to squint to see the year it was minted. The date was 1973 and I thought to myself “Jesus Christ, I’m a year older than this quarter and this thing looks like it smoked 4 packs of cigs a day.” I’m not thrilled with items that are younger than me looking well beyond their age. Sure, 32 isn’t an old age, but it’s well past the Spring Chicken phase of most people’s lives. It’s the age where abs turn into flabs and you’d rather finish off that 4th piece of fried chicken rather than take your customary daily evening walk.

I first experienced the age crisis thing way back in college (at least in my head). By the time I was a college sophomore, certain hotshot rookies were making it into the NHL who were my age. While I was signing my life away in triplicate with my student loan application forms, these punks were signing million dollar bonuses. By age 20, I had a mid-life mid-life crisis (halfway to 40). I wasn’t a rock star so I still had to get up in the A.M. for class. I didn’t want to dance so that kind of cut me out of the whole “boy band” possibility, not to mention I have a complexion more suited for the position of “Pale-Skinned Mushroom Harvester” in the school play. While I didn’t despair, I realized that my marketing degree, which involved the least amount of math for a business major, wasn’t going to open doors to being a photographer for Penthouse. Hell, porn on paper instead of on your PC monitor even seems quaint now, doesn’t it? :) “Son, back in my days we had to ask for porn IN PERSON at your local 7-11”.

The next “Damn, I’m getting older moment” was when I realized that the people who were graduating at Bradley in 1999 were still in high school when I graduated from college. This January was my 10 year anniversary of graduating from college and that brought another round of pseudo-self-pity from the part of me that likes to dwell on the dark things in life.

As of late, I notice how much I’m advancing in age when you have to register your year of birth on certain web sites. If the Year field is a drop down list, I generally have to click 3 or 4 times before “1972” appears as a selection.

That being said, at least my age group isn’t to the point where someone famous that you grew up with is dying on a weekly basis. Once I start reading, week after week, about the deaths of celebrities like Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks and Gwen Stefani and Alex Rodriguez and Corey Feldman (aren’t we all hoping that one happens a little sooner than most others?), then I will begin to get a little nervous that the next partially unchewed piece of nursing home beef lodged in my throat could be my last.