Back in 1967, when the Beatles released the “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” the album which included Paul McCartney’s song, “When I’m Sixty-Four,” I was a 9-year-old kid, growing up in Tecumseh. My folks had just finished building their “forever” home on Gove Court and we moved there from Cairns Street in May that year. I didn’t listen to a lot of Beatles music then (I still don’t, really), preferring Davy Jones and the iconic Monkees, who had their own TV show, the Jackson 5, and the Osmonds.
But “When I’m Sixty-Four” somehow captured my attention. It was catchy. I probably drove my family crazy just singing that phrase over and over, “will you still need me when I’m sixty-four?” I don’t know how old I thought 64 was, but it most assuredly was positively ancient to a 9-year-old.
In 1967, my dad was already 47, both his parents were 67 and my maternal grandparents were 54 and 64, respectively. My mother still was young–only 35–but she’d just had her sixth child. I couldn’t fathom being that old, although I rarely even thought about it.
But, those golden years finally arrived and on Sunday, I marked my 64th birthday. I posted a video on Facebook with the Beatles’ song, and as has become the norm, I received a host of birthday greetings from friends all over the social media-verse. There were text messages and emails, too. I really enjoyed and appreciated hearing from everyone and I’m sure there will be others who will drop me a belated birthday wish. As birthdays go, it was a good one.
As children, our concept of time and age is skewed. The lens of inexperience and naivete that we view the world through is limited to our backyards and neighborhoods and schools and so being in my 60s seems a fiction of sorts, as if I am reading a novel about my own life from the outside looking in, a third-person narrator. With it comes a bit of uncertainty about my past, especially my childhood.
In my growing-up years, birthdays were a big deal. We had a large family and everyone had their own month. I remember waking up and being very excited about my special day. My mom would take me to the D & C store downtown to pick out my gift. I have a very vague memory of having a pineapple sundae at a store in Tecumseh with a soda fountain, but I cannot remember where it was. Then, it was home to my favorite dinner–spaghetti–and cake, candles and presents. Often, my grandparents would come to celebrate.
This was repeated for me and every one of my seven siblings for many years. As we had our own families, the tradition started to fall off–especially once the grandkids were in their teens. But when I was a kid, it was awesome to have a summer birthday.
As I age, I worry about forgetting those childhood memories. Beyond the gray hair, wrinkled skin, and sagging muscles, the fear of losing all that shaped who I am today is the greatest of all. There are some days when I cannot remember what my parents looked like when I was a kid or what my sister looked like in the last few years of her life. Events blur. Memories fade in the twilight of aging. I remember those birthdays, but the edges around them are fraying and I’m never quite certain if I’m patching them with some fiction that has become real to me or if they are destined to be forgotten.
There is a positive side to this aging, however. As we “boomers” get older, we have more comfortable lives than our parents and 64 doesn’t seem nearly as elderly as it did to us when we were barely out of diapers. We’re mostly better educated, have better health, and a more tolerant view of others, an almost “live and let live” philosophy. Even if we don’t, we are somehow more mellow. Even more significant for this generation is our shared memory. We have a collective history, one that won’t let us forget at least some of those important childhood events, like what it tasted like to drink water straight from a garden hose, ride our bikes with their banana seats and high handlebars to the Pit or ballfield or library, eat an ice cream cone quickly as its sweetness ran down our palms, lie on a blanket under the starry August sky and count the shooting stars with nary a thought to anything beyond the moment.
It is in this context that we rely on each other to help keep our pasts alive and ourselves relevant. We have much to offer the younger generation and it is up to us to make sure we are keepers of our history. To answer McCartney’s question, we most definitely will need each other as we go through these golden years.
So, my friends, take some time to travel back in your own childhood experiences and share them in some way with your children and grandchildren.
And don’t forget to wish our fellow classmates who turned 64 this year a happy birthday!
SQUIBS 