Birthdays

Yesterday was my granddaughter’s thirteenth birthday and tomorrow is my birthday. One of us is old and the other beautiful. No hints.

I did get to thinking about the difference in life’s perceptions from a thirteen year old to me. There are a lot of experiential years in between that provide a knowing look on the condition of human kind and there is a lot of youthful wonderment in thirteen years of existence that I have forgotten and should probably embrace for a gestalt understanding of life and times.

When I was a youngster we still played outside. My TV-programs were on only three channels. CBS, NBC and Dumont. ABC had not yet been formed into the third national network.

At first, I watched TV at a neighbor’s home since we didn’t get one until later. We kids (I can’t even remember my young friends names) watched Howdy Doody, Gabby Hayes, Captain Video and Tom Corbett Space Cadet. They were generally fifteen-minute programs starting around five in the evening.

After we got a television a year or so later, I remember my Mother coming home from teaching elementary school and while preparing dinner Kate Smith could be heard in the living room singing her theme song, “When the moon comes over the mountain”.

My granddaughter’s TV choices are over six hundred channels. I imagine her birthday thoughts are just as profound as mine. Her gifts were colors for nails and make-up, a Kindle and goodies from friends, parents, cousins and grandparents. Her year will linger long in merriment for she has only lived one-thirteenth of her life.

Tomorrow I will get a few birthday wishes and calls, a couple of cards and a gift and a hug from my wife, but the day will pass quickly as they all do when one is in their seventh decade.

I’ll try to talk to my granddaughter about serious things a little more this year, but I’ll leave talking about boys to her parents.

Anthropologist Margaret Mead once wrote that it’s good for the young and old to be together. The child then is able to acknowledge the elder in herself and the elder is able to acknowledge the child in himself and a new agreement is formed between generations. I like that.