Turning 44
Forty-four is a fun number. It's four times a prime number: eleven. It's the same backwards and forwards. If you divide by two, those numbers are also the same backwards and forwards. Same if you halve it again. Or if you double it.
Forty-four will be my age tomorrow.
I remember when JFK died. I was only one-and-a-half when it happened, but I remember the atmosphere and the images on the news. I also remember the deaths of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. I remember singing to the Beatles on the radio when I was too small to climb onto the livingroom couch.
I remember when we landed on the moon, and I remember when our last helicopters left Viet Nam. I know the words to Elton John's Rocket Man and Philadelphia Freedom, which immediately transport me to my front yard with my childhood friends in the summer of 1975.
I remember Watergate. I remember my feeling of insecurity when Jimmy Carter won the presidency. I saw the first Star Wars movie in the theatre - twice. I remember Chernobyl. I was in a restaurant in my home town drinking coffee with a friend when I heard the news that John Lennon was killed.
I watched Saturday Night Live as a babysitter when the original players were on. I lived through the much needed fashion shift from the 70's to the 80's. I dove neck deep into 80's Christianity, and yes - I bought stock early and sold late. I've lived through nine presidencies, I've attended five churches, and I've had two husbands. I cried when Mother Theresa and Pope John Paul II died.
I'm one of those people that straddle the Baby Boomers and the Gen Xers. I have respect for where I've been but I don't live there.
It's been an amazing stretch from 1962 to 2006. From AT&T to AOL, from analog to satellite, from Jesus People to mega church and back again. I remind myself often that when our history was made real people passed it by every day. I like to wonder if events I observe today will be examined by others like me 100 years from now.
Maybe I'm too nostalgic. Or maybe it's just that I'm turning forty-four.
Forty-four will be my age tomorrow.
I remember when JFK died. I was only one-and-a-half when it happened, but I remember the atmosphere and the images on the news. I also remember the deaths of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. I remember singing to the Beatles on the radio when I was too small to climb onto the livingroom couch.
I remember when we landed on the moon, and I remember when our last helicopters left Viet Nam. I know the words to Elton John's Rocket Man and Philadelphia Freedom, which immediately transport me to my front yard with my childhood friends in the summer of 1975. I remember Watergate. I remember my feeling of insecurity when Jimmy Carter won the presidency. I saw the first Star Wars movie in the theatre - twice. I remember Chernobyl. I was in a restaurant in my home town drinking coffee with a friend when I heard the news that John Lennon was killed.
I watched Saturday Night Live as a babysitter when the original players were on. I lived through the much needed fashion shift from the 70's to the 80's. I dove neck deep into 80's Christianity, and yes - I bought stock early and sold late. I've lived through nine presidencies, I've attended five churches, and I've had two husbands. I cried when Mother Theresa and Pope John Paul II died.
I'm one of those people that straddle the Baby Boomers and the Gen Xers. I have respect for where I've been but I don't live there.
It's been an amazing stretch from 1962 to 2006. From AT&T to AOL, from analog to satellite, from Jesus People to mega church and back again. I remind myself often that when our history was made real people passed it by every day. I like to wonder if events I observe today will be examined by others like me 100 years from now.
Maybe I'm too nostalgic. Or maybe it's just that I'm turning forty-four.
