Will you still read me now that I’m sixty-four? – New Bern Sun Journal

Bill Hand|Sun Journal

As we all pretty much hope to do one day, I have become a Beatles song. No, not Let It Be. Ive never been able to let anything be. I can fidget the life out of pretty much anything.

Nor Penny Lane (though, like the banker, Ive never worn a mac in the pouring rain. Very strange.)

No, the song Ive become and that, I suppose, most of us hope one day to be, is When Im Sixty-Four.

Trivia: Paul McCartney was only 15 when he wrote that on the family piano. He was 24 when he recorded it; he divorced his 38-year-old wife when he was 64 in 2006 (Will you still feed me? No, and I want the dog the house and the Rolls!). He is 78 now, and can only sing When I Was Sixty-four, assuming he can remember what life was like that long ago.

I used to occasionally give thought to learning that on guitar and playing it to my wife before the 64th anniversary of post-womb existence, but I blew it. On Wednesday I went to bed 63 and woke up Thursday morning a Beatles song, but replacing Vera, Chuck and Dave with just Sara and Rachel. I guess its just something Ill have to yank off my bucket list.

I talked to an old friend in Erie, and he is the one who pointed out that we had not only missed singing the song in a legitimate way but that we had somehow become the song.

Youre in a strange world when youre growing old. In our youth-obsessed world, we refuse to admit age; we call ourselves middle-aged at best, as if were all going to make our 128th birthday. If were rich we buy all the youth we can in the form of Botox and plastic surgeons. We look in the mirror and recognize the person looking back at us, but we blink because were trying to figure out whos wrinkled skinhe borrowed to live in.

I can remember my father growing old, and how I didnt think it would happen to me; I can distinctly remember my mother-in-laws 50th birthday and how smug I felt at her advancing age and my own anything-but-advancing youth.

And were living in a weird age to be aged.

What happened to rocking chairs and front porches? I mean, I see rocking chairs on front porches all the time but the only thing that occupies them is autumnal floral arrangements. When I was young, grandparents used those things. They sat there, slowly rocking, ruminating over their lives, often with their needles stuck on that same single episode they remember best, telling it to us over and over. Grandma lived in the kitchen, baking cookies, and grandpa sat out back, firing off his opinion of the whippersnappers who didnt know anything, or offering philosophy often profound, occasionally outdated, and sometimes just plain weird.

And I am talking about the traditional grandparents in the cities and towns, not the country ones where grandma was churning butter at 95, even though stores had been making cheap butter and margarine since she was 30, and where Grandpa was out milking cows and overhauling tractors until he died with a wrench in his hand or a cat staring morosely by the bucket, wondering why the guy squirting milk her way had up and quit.

Today, rocking on the porch and complaining about the neighbors kids in our yards is the last thing on our minds. Were Facebooking and texting, golfing, tennis-ing and fishing and reaching our favorite fishing holes on a jet ski; none of this namby-pamby Ford pickup stuff.

We have more energy than ever before (not that a recliner and tv show wont instantly put us to sleep after 7 p.m.). We keep aging but we weve quit growing old (did you know the government dropped old age as a cause of death way back in 1951?). Medicines and an awareness that walks and bicycles do a lot more for your health than rocking on the porch are keeping us healthier.

At 64 I have your traditional aches and pains; rigor mortis is running early tests while I sleep I know it because I feel its stiffness when I first get out of bed in the morning. But otherwise, Im pretty good. My mind seems clear if a little weird; I can do pretty well the things Ive always done, so long as I do it just a bit more slowly and with a touch more caution. The only real health problem Im feeling as I write this is an ongoing ear worm for a Beatles song in my head.

By life span, Im into my final quarter. But Im not old. And Ill never truly be old until the young people around me start telling me Im (fill in the blank) years young.

Contact Bill Hand at bill.hand@newbernsj.com or 252-229-4977.

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Will you still read me now that I'm sixty-four? - New Bern Sun Journal