Steve Ages Out As most of you who have found your way to this website probably know, on Monday your faithless correspondent will achieve a milestone that will render him (which is to say, moi) not just actually but officially . . . old. Or, as Herself puts it: Sixty-five is the new Ninety. The relative validity of this phrase was revealed in a scene that took place only last night, when I asked Truman (who is seven) to guess how old Daddy will turn on Monday. Truman and I were sitting on the daybed sofa on our covered porch, consuming appropriately aged beverages with our family friend, Joseph Israel Robinson, President of the Society of Schnorer Snorers, who likewise imbibed. Herself was in the house, talking on the phone with her mother, Karla. Upon receiving my question, Truman sat back, cocked his head, and took a good look at his father for what may have been the very first time. After ten full seconds, he said . . . wait for it . . . Seventy-five. I reacted to this perception by recalling a similar conversation a decade and a half earlier: On the day Sheyene turned twenty-one (she was not yet Mrs. Heller but already Herself, the Boss of Steves Face), I asked her brother, Jackson (who was four), how old he thought his sister was. Twenty, he replied. And how old do you think I am? I asked. Jackson looked at me, crinkled his nose, and said: Twenty-two. Heartened by this memory, I asked Truman: How old do you think Mommy is? (For the record, shes thirty-six.) Seventeen, he said. Because I had nowhere else to turn, I looked at Joseph. Joseph, whose parents were Holocaust survivors, was born in a Displaced Persons Camp in Germany in 1946. Hes sixty-eight. And how old do you think Joseph is? I asked. Truman gave Joseph a head-to-toe appraisal, then said: Eighty-five. At the end of the evening, as an optimist I decided to take comfort in the following self-evident truth: Things could always be worse. I could be Jewish.
Posted on: Sun, 19 Oct 2014 15:21:00 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015