During 1960s, one of the mantras of the counterculture was to “never trust anyone over 30.” Civil rights and Berkeley free speech activist Jack Weinberger is widely credited with making that statement. To those of us old enough to remember the days of free love, we also recall turning on, tuning in and dropping out spoken by one of the day’s best known gurus, Timothy Leary. Oh my. To many, our 30s rapidly passed us by with no noticeable trepidation. In many instances, we have not only become our parents, we are rapidly turning into our grandparents.

Today is my father’s 80th birthday. I will be spending the rest of the day with family and only take an occasional look at my computer, if I take it with me.

Early last night, I spoke to my 91-year-old Uncle David, and to put things in a relative perspective, he said, “Gosh… your father’s going to be 80 tomorrow? Oh, I long for he day I could be 80 again.”

You see, my uncle’s mind is as sharp as it was a half-century ago, but his body is catching up with him. To each and every one of us we understand our own relativity, how it impacts our own lives each day and how much it changes with passing time. We are what we make of ourselves.

∞