By Dixon Bledsoe
It is official. Middle age left some time ago.
Turning 60 makes one reflect. The “thrill of victory” finding an everlasting love, the birth and growth of two wonderful kids and the successful landing of a 51-pound King salmon in Alaska. The “agony of defeat” in things for which I would love to have a “do-over.”
It is tough being a “tweener.” Remembering the first color TV and watching that “Ponderosa” map burning as Ben and his boys fought bad guys on Bonanza. Someone who watched John-John salute his father’s casket and then die himself way too early. I saw John Glen and Neil Armstrong define the term “The Right Stuff” and became a person who thought, “I’d give up vital organs to be Ricky Nelson right now.” I am a Viet-Nam era vet who saw computers taking up 20’ x 20’ rooms and the Cuban missile crisis took center stage. We learned to hide under chairs, as if that would help.
I know what “LMAO” means and how to “tweet.” I am someone who thought 8-tracks were the greatest invention of the 20th Century only to be surpassed in “geniusness” by cassettes. Now my i-Pod Nano is the size of a Nabisco Mini-Wheat. I remember what “Mares” and “Does” eat and what LPs and 78s are. I know that 50 cents doesn’t buy much anymore and I would never buy anything by “Fitty Cent.”
I know Willie Nelson wrote Crazy for Patsy Cline and Marty Robbins crooned one of the first big cross-over hits “out in the West Texas town of El Paso.” I watched teachers who got to teach and those who now must also serve as social workers, nurses, verbal punching bags and the peanut police.
I have lived when “Whites Only” used the front doors of restaurants, my parents made us finish our plates because there were hungry children in Africa and June Cleaver was the perfect stay-at-home mom for Wally and the “Beav.” Now a person of color is president, the hungry kid is two doors down, and we still ignore 51 percent of the population when presidential candidates are determined. We didn’t think twice when Rob and Laura Petrie slept in separate beds on the Dick Van Dyke Show and much to the chagrin of teen-age boys everywhere, Annette Funicello wore one-piece swimsuits because Mr. Disney said so. Now I see more off-color language, gratuitous sex and violence than ever on TV, and recall when “Reality TV” was The Wild Kingdom. Now new “Reality” shows debut every week and none are real. I have seen political rivals arm wrestle in Congress by day and go out for dinner as friends. But I have also watched an idiot elected-official shout out in a “State of the Union” address “You Lie!” to our president with little repercussion and even some “atta boy’s.”
I knew that “going out” with someone was actually going somewhere like a movie and that “going out” now is liking someone. When “gay” meant happy, “Coke’ was a drink made of sugar, and Sunday night family dinners meant pot roast and not a cell phone in sight. Now family dinners are a rarity except at holidays and Top Ramen is near the top of the food pyramid.
I remember making touchdowns and a coach saying “Act like you’ve been there before.” Now I see $5 million-a-year running backs doing stupid pre-rehearsed dances simply for crossing a white line with a ball in hand, forgetting the guys who blocked for them and the $11 an-hour mail clerk in a $75 seat who roots them on while eating an $8 hot dog and a $6 beer.
Being a “tweener” is not easy and the voyage to the New World has not always been an easy float on mirror-like waters. But what a trip it’s been. Just imagine the seas ahead.
