I found out about an alumni group for my high school on Facebook. I was skimming through pages & pages of profiles, and not seeing anyone whose face or name rings a bell. Of course, most of the profiles are from folks from the past decade and I graduated 21 years ago.
That’s when it struck me - most of the kids who’ll be graduating from my high school THIS year weren’t even BORN when I graduated high school! They weren’t even a bun in the oven - perhaps their parents hadn’t even begun dating!
Uhhhhh, uhhh, uhh. Where’s my cane? It’s cold in here. Nurse? Nurse? I need to take my heart medicine now…back in MY day…
I was at the bar the other day talking with our favorite bartender - she and her husband were planning a vacation and talking about flying. We were joking around and I commented that back in the days when I was a kid we used to get dressed up to go on airplanes. She says, “Yeah - I know - my grandmother told me all about it.”
I was listening to They Might Be Giants’ Flood album yesterday in the car. It starts out with a song that includes the lyrics “It’s a brand new record for 1990”.
Mr. Neville might have some students in his Astro 101 college class who were born in 1990. I remember things that happened the year some current college students were born.
I was also thinking about my new baby niece. When she grows up, she will (assuming she thinks about such things) think of music from 1990 in the same way I think about music that was made 18 years before I was born. Music made 18 years before I was born was made in 1957…
How did I get so old?
Yeah, I could stop listening to that album. But then I wouldn’t be able to sing along to Constantinople, or Particle Man, or any of the other songs on that album that I like singing along to
My boss, an assistant superintendent and I were talking about random things waiting for a meeting to start. He asked me what year I graduated high school. I said 1977. He laughed and said, that was the year he was born. One of my friends sitting next to me said, 'really? I was a year old…".
I’m a frequent flyer at my pharmacy. They have one of those punch cards gets punched every time you pick up a prescription and get gift cards in return. I have a small stack of those damn Safeway cards tucked in my wallet. You know when you have to so to the window and tell them your name? Not me, they see me coming, recognize me and have it waiting.
My partner is 8 years younger than me. In everyday life, we never feel that age difference. But every once in a while it really smacks me in the face. The other day we were discussing U.S. presidents and I realized that I was born the year Nixon was impeached. I remember former president Reagan getting shot by Hinkley. She was one when Reagan got shot. All of her music from her teen years is on CD. Mine? Cassettes and vinyl.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I think Matlock is coming on.
They brought in a cake for one of the unit chiefs in our office a couple of weeks ago, and she mentioned that she was now 35. It struck me that I started working here when she was less than a month old.
I realized as I got the license plate renewal in the mail today that my Hot Fast Brand New Red Super Sportscar is now 10 years old. Plate renewal is $38.72
Don’t have to go far. Over in the wow–they used to be hot! thread, some folks are expressing surprise discovering how hot Clint Eastwood, Elizabeth Taylor(!), Jane Russell, and Laurence Olivier were when younger.
I was reminded of my age (I’ll be 37 in 2 weeks) earlier this week when I heard Benny Mardones’ “Into The Night” on K-Earth 101 (that’s right, the oldies station). I remember first hearing it when I was in 5th or 6th grade, sometime in 1981 or '82, and thinking how romantic it sounded. Now it just makes me think, “Stick to women your age, you child molester.”
I gotta go. It’s almost time for “The Golden Girls.”
