"Old" only important to cheese and wine

From May, 2003

I’ve been thinking a lot about death lately. Memorial Day is coming up next week – that’s part of the reason. And next week also marks a birthday for me. The big 5-0. When more of life is in the rear-view mirror than up ahead, well, it causes some reflection and pondering. Spouse says I shouldn’t worry so much about it. She says I’m twice the man I used to be, and I have the bathroom scales to prove it.

Cold one, that Spouse.

I’ve always thought Memorial Day – my parents still call it Decoration Day – is an important holiday. Growing up, it meant the end of school, the beginning of summer, a day to acknowledge that clouds of snow were now to be replaced by clouds of mosquitoes.

Memorial Day draws its roots from the Civil War. Three years after the war ended, the head of an organization of Union veterans started a movement in upstate New York to establish Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of Civil War dead with flowers and May 30 was chosen because of the availability of flowers. After a couple of years of smaller observances, in 1868 an service was held at Arlington National Cemetery and the holiday gained some legs. After WWI, the day was used to honor war dead from all conflicts, not just the Civil War.

In 1966, Congress and President Johnson declared Waterloo, NY, as the birthplace of Memorial Day and in 1971, the Monday national holiday we now know was established. At that time, it was still called Deciration Day in many communities, but the holiday was formalized as Memorial Day and set for the last Monday in May.

In some Southern communities, there is still a Confederate Decoration Day, such as May 10 in South Carolina and April 26 in Georgia.

While you are at the cemetery next week, you may want to consider that according to the National Center for Health Statistics, on an average day in America, 5,937 people die. (But 10,501 new Americans are born.) Of those dying, 886 persons are cremated and 4,928 are buried and the few remaining are unaccounted for by the undertakers, I guess.

Are you curious how likely it is that you won’t be standing outside the gravesite next Memorial Day, but lying down instead? Statisticians at the Dept. of Health and Human Services say you have a one in 115 chance of dying this next year. The risk of a heart attack is one in 77; that you will die in an accident, one in 2,900; that you will die riding your bicycle, one in 130,000; that you will be killed by lightning, one in 2 million; and that you will freeze to death, one in 3 million.

I couldn’t find a statistic for the likelihood of choking on chocolate cake and dying at your 50th birthday party, but for me that is a real fear. I hate birthday parties like Billy Crystal in “City Slickers.” I don’t want to go, though, like J. I. Rodale, one-time publisher of “Prevention” magazine and health food advocate. While appearing on the old Dick Cavett show in the late ‘60s to discuss his phyiscal well-being, he put his head down during a break and died. The taped show never aired.

A man named Bob Talley passed away in London during his 100th birthday party, moments after receiving a telegram of congratulations form the Queen and telling friends, “I made it to 100!”
Stanley Goldman, a candidate for mayor in Hollywood a few years ago, was chiding his opponent at one campaign stop for being too old to run for office when he dropped dead from a heart attack.

So with the determination that it is better to live life than to act your age, I’m facing my age head on.

I’m old enough to know that I can’t figure out what’s going on in the Middle East and neither
can they.

I’m old enough to know that each generation has its own favorite music …and mine was the best.

I’m old enough to know that Adam Sandler must be stopped.

I’m old enough to know there are fewer gays in real life than in Hollywood sitcoms.

I’m old enough to know that alcohol is no respecter of persons. It can make an idiot of anyone.

I’m old enough to know that most outside consultants don’t know half what an inside consultant knows.

I’m old enough to know that a little child’s self-esteem is the most precious element on earth.

I’m old enough to know we should have more family reunions.

I’m old enough to know that there is no such thing as a small leak.

I’m old enough to know that Ann Landers was right: “Inside every 70 year old is a 35-year-old saying, ‘What happened?’”
And I’m old enough to know that old age will always be 15 years older than I am.