"Reflections on Turning 70 in America 2.0"
by Donald Jefferies
"I don’t really feel any different. But, boy that number is frightening. It’s a scary milestone. 70. The big seven-o. It sounds so old. When I was a kid, when I was a young adult, when I was middle age, anyone 70 years old seemed decrepit. Elderly. On their last legs. On the brink of “pushing up daisies,” as my dear mother used to put it.
I’m trying to tell myself that you’re only as old as you feel. That it’s just a number, as so many younger people have told me. If I go by how I feel, then I’m about 14. Wondering when I will mature, and finally adopt the persona of a grown adult. If I went to my local senior center, I would probably see some people there who are younger than me. I’m not interested in hanging out with them. Playing checkers, or whatever it is that oldsters play now. Watching reruns of Matlock. I visited my brother’s senior center, and ate their food. They make it purposely bland, without spices, or even salt and pepper. Without flavor. Like hospital food. That’s good enough for the senior set. They don’t need or deserve anything better. They had plenty of time in the past to eat tastier foods. It’s time to quiet down. Don’t get too excited - it’s not good for your blood pressure. They’ve begrudgingly admitted that salt has no impact on blood pressure, but the oldsters still go without it. Lies and propaganda die hard.
Probably because I was born so late in life, with my parents being in their 50s during my childhood, I’ve always felt a strong bond with old people. I loved to hear them talk about their lives. The distant past, which seemed so exotic to me. I knew plenty of elderly people who were born in the 1890s. The nineteenth century. The last Civil War veteran died a few weeks before I was born. The last Civil War widow died in 2003. Those old timers had some very young brides back then. When I first entered the workforce in the mid-1970s, the WWII generation was still large and in charge. Retired veterans everywhere, running everything. I’m older than all of them were then, and they seemed really old to this long haired, card-carrying member of the ACLU. I think back on those times, and it just doesn’t seem possible that I’m living in the same world. The internet was supposedly in its infancy in the Pentagon, of all places. I can’t imagine my life without the internet now. I doubt I’d be writing without the internet.
Fear of aging is fear of death. I have fear of aging, because I have a great fear of death. I remember watching Gunsmoke with my father as a very young child, and learning that everyone eventually dies. Not just the bad guys gunned down in the streets of TV westerns. I was crushed. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. When you have old parents, with perpetual ailments, death is always in the air. I used to walk by their bedroom when they were asleep, checking to hear the sounds of their breathing. I feared them dying, and expected them to die, for so long that their deaths were anticlimactic. Now I’m older than my father ever was, and getting close to my mother’s age when she died. Still I hate doctors enough to refuse to go to them. I don’t really worry about myself in quite the same way, but I am terrified at the prospect of dying. I have faith. I don’t believe this can possibly be all there is to existence. But the finality, at least in terms of this world, hits like a sledgehammer. The inevitability. Which I can’t accept.
When I reached 60, I started thinking that I really can’t shoot baskets any more. What if I dropped dead like Pete Maravich and so many other anonymous souls? I’ve kind of stopped doing my Zumba workout, and switched to tai chi. Which is pretty satisfying, but am I giving in to Old Man Syndrome? If I feel up to it, why shouldn’t I just do something? I’ve slowed down, mostly because I’m aware of that number hanging over my head. But not much. I workout every other day. I used to average over 20,000 steps a day, now I get 20,000 every other day. Then take it a bit easier on the “off” days, with 10-12,000 steps. I still race up stairs. Some of the time. Not all of the time, like I used to. We have a lot of stairs, and I’m starting to think too much about falling. So many old people break something when they fall. My uncle was 94, on no prescription meds at all, but he fell and that was it. Denied him a chance at 100. We don’t have great longevity, but my father had first cousins on both sides who made it to 101 and 104.
With the nervous apprehension of hitting 70, and the perhaps psychosomatic awareness of more frequent aches and pains, I decided to do something to make myself feel better. About me, as the insane Tik Tok therapists might say. So I started counting my calories. I’ve lost 15 pounds in just a few weeks. And it does make me feel better, because I look better. Just like my uncle, I don’t take any prescriptions. But I do ingest a huge number of vitamins and supplements. I think and I hope they help. But I don’t sleep much. Then again, I never really have slept normally. I can’t picture them using me for a sleep study. I can count on one hand the times I’ve slept through the night in my entire life. 70 years of life. I’ve always awakened every hour or two, three at the most. I don’t know why. I’m sure I have decades of REM deprivation. It’s natural to be an insomniac when you have the things running through your mind that I do. Paranoia. Various phobias. Stressing over the safety and welfare of those I love.
This year has been one of great personal loss. My dear sister Janet, and her incomparable daughter Denise, four days apart from each other. John Barbour, the most rewarding friendship I ever had. My next door neighbor and friend, gone from cancer, who was four years younger than me. One of the Lake Braddock monthly lunch bunch, whom I met through my good friend Vince Agnelli. Died suddenly at only 65. Combined with the loss of my brother four years ago, my 70th birthday party is not going to be quite the big celebration I once envisioned it as. I counted eight people who have died from my 60th birthday party. Time flies, and we can’t slow it down. We don’t even understand it. I’ve often wondered if time is a construct, like the idolators claim race is. If there were no clocks, no calendars to keep track of it, how would we know what time it was? What day it was? Under such circumstances, would we still age? Do we age because “time” tells us we are aging? I can’t help but wonder.
Like one of my favorite poets, Edna St. Vincent Millay, “I know. But I am not resigned.” I’ve even speculated that there is a “death gene” in us all. Do we die because we think we must? Why do some people age so much more gracefully than others? Just looking at some of those I graduated with from Oakton High School in 1974, there is massive disparity in the way they look. Some look great. Vibrant. Still alluring. Others look like generic grandparents. Fragile. Harmless. Couldn’t some of that at least be mental? I used to be told how much younger I looked. Now most people don’t say anything about it. I take this to mean that they aren’t surprised at my age, when they used to always be surprised. I look in the mirror and still pretty much like what I see, especially with the recent weight loss. Maybe it’s just my ego at work. Like my lone remaining sibling, my oldest sister, I place great stock in at least trying to look good. Standing up straight. I blanche when I see all the hunched over oldsters.
The past is prologue. But each of our genealogical pasts represents our personal prologues. I’ve traced my ancestry as best I could. I found a genuine Revolutionary War hero in my family tree. On my mother’s side, John Follin was captured by the British and escaped from his prisoner of war status by walking on foot from Pennsylvania back to Virginia. He had an incredible thirty children by two different wives. My ancestors were fruitful and multiplied. On my father’s side, I verified the legend that his second cousin married Rutherford B. Hayes III. Naturally, we never met this side of the family, being common riff-raff and all. I found a picture of that cousin’s mother, who came from real poverty, and wasn’t surprised to see that she was a hot late nineteenth century babe, which put her into a position to marry a wealthy lawyer that ran in the same circles as the Hayes family did. So that’s my connection to the rich and powerful. I’ve had no favors bestowed upon me by Rutherford B’s heirs.
When you reach my age, you’re going to spend a lot of time looking back. Wondering how life would have worked out, if I’d done things differently. If I’d asked Twyla Turner to the prom. If I’d concentrated less on the JFK assassination and UFOs, and focused on getting a college degree. If I’d stopped being a radical for even a moment. Compromised just a little bit. Conformed in some way. But I was always fighting the system. In school. At work. Socially. And eventually the world at large. Which would eventually result in ten books, and lots of internet columns like this. I don’t think it’s in me to compromise my beliefs and values. But then again, there was never a super model with a gigantic trust fund dangling before me in temptation. I don’t think I would have ever sold out, but no one tried to force me to, either. I kind of relished being a relative failure. An outsider ranting at the Man. Maybe that was foolish.
Money never meant anything to me. As my wise Chinese friend, the legendary Danny Liu told me back in the 1980s after he read my palm, “I’m sorry, man, but you can never have much money.” He was eerily prophetic, although I’ve never really been in dire financial straits. I struggled financially sometimes, like 80 percent of us do. When I wrote "Survival of the Richest", it was heartfelt because I’d lived paycheck to paycheck my entire life, and rarely had much savings in the bank. But I never missed a meal. I’ve had most of the shiny toys of the modern era. And I was blessed with a patient and understanding wife, and two wonderful children. In 1998, despite not really being in a position to afford it, we somehow bought our dream home. My real estate license came in handy, and we got a real bargain. I’ve lived in a peaceful, idyllic neighborhood ever since. There was no question in my mind that I had the lowest income in my subdivision. A small fish in a nice big neighborhood. That’s an ideal situation.
It took me many years, and lots of historical research, to realize just how lucky I’d been to be born a Boomer. The much maligned Boomers. We had idyllic childhoods, primarily because our parents enjoyed the greatest economy this country, or the world, has ever seen. Every job paid a living wage. A television was in every home. Kids could be entertained by the best of Hollywood, much of it produced during their parents’ childhoods. The Three Stooges. The Little Rascals. Popeye. The classic Warner Brothers cartoons. Recent, thrilling shows like The Adventures of Superman. George “Superman” Reeves was already dead, unquestionably murdered but labeled suicide. That didn’t stop us from enjoying the reruns. Both comic books and baseball cards were sacred to little boys like me. Fortunately, I was already developing the habit of not throwing anything away. If you saw my house, you’d understand. But some of those cards and comics are worth real money now. I took good care of them.
I guess all people think the times they grew up in were the best. As Carly Simon told us, “These are the good old days.” I can’t imagine Gen Z will one day look back fondly on their youth, with a horrific economy producing few real job opportunities, a severe affordability problem with housing, food, gas, and everything else, no memorable music or films, and a cultural climate filled with male incels, increasing obesity, and a mad transgender movement. But maybe they will. Especially if things get worse, which looks probable. But I can still listen to the best music ever produced. At least in the opinion of virtually all Boomers. It still sounds great, decades later. Preserved for eternity, along with all those classic television shows and movies. Preserved far better than any of us. But we have our memories. As the old song went, “They can’t take that away from me.” Memories of lovely young girls. Who are now either dead already or resemble your grandmother. Of strapping boys who now wield a cane or walker.
I love talking about the past. It’s no accident that I concentrate much of my writing on history. But I would really enjoy looking forward, to the kind of future all those 1950s documentaries predicted. Moving sidewalks. Flying cars, like The Jetsons. Medical miracles, resulting in the eradication of pain and disease, with dramatically increased lifespans. Instead, we have the same old gas guzzlers. Or for many young people, expensive Ubers, since they can’t afford their own car. We have the worst medical system ever seen, with skyrocketing childhood cancer rates and chronic diseases. And a plummeting life expectancy. Not what Walt Disney envisioned with his Tomorrowland. The elderly hippies aren’t as interesting to talk to as the elderly WWII era people. They are mostly preoccupied with getting marijuana gummies and their Viagra. Senior citizens who smoked pot and had sex in closets as youths, still trying to be intimate. Not a pretty sight. And spare me the gray pony tails and man buns.
I’ve been very blessed. Way more than I remotely deserved. I never really worked hard, or had much ambition, outside of wanting to be some kind of writer. So many people I know- good people- never had kids, never got married. They’re old now too, if they’re still alive. But they’re alone. Old age is hell, as my dear mother used to say, but old age alone must be a special kind of hell. I think of those who already, by my age, are in some kind of retirement community, at best. At worst, they are being mistreated in nursing homes, and rarely visited by loved ones, if they have any. So call me lucky. I’m doing exactly what I want to do every day. How many people can say that? I may pick up the guitar again, if I can figure out how to tune it. Or take up banjo. Maybe tap dancing. But mostly keep writing. And podcasting. 70. It’s an imposing number. But I think of all I know who never lived to see it. A 70 year old today is not the same as when I was a child. It’s the new 50. Just a number. Which I’m reluctantly embracing."
So very familiar, Donald, thank you!
Considering on September 14 I'll be 75...
- CP
