Published Wednesday, March 17, 2010 2:34 PM
Updated Wednesday, March 17, 2010 2:34 PM
Among other things, this will mean numerous fruitless attempts to recognize children of people I haven’t seen in awhile.
I’m starting to understand why my mother tends to call my brother and me several different names before landing on the right one. I’m not quite there yet, but the fact is I no longer recognize most of the next generation well enough to place names and faces. Most of them are now young adults. Their younger siblings are in high school. And if I ran into them on the street, I wouldn’t be able to tell whom they were to save my life.
“Uncle Jimmy, so good to see you,” one might say.
“Be gone, thy beggar brat street urchin, I have no alms for you,” I might reply. Or words to that effect.
The last one of these we did, at least with this side of the family, was about three years ago. As I recall, it was the first time my Beloved was ever thrust into the midst of such a maelstrom. As usual, she charmed everyone to the nth degree, to the point where they are all gladly willing to trade me for her.
As always, it was a lot of fun, reminiscent of years long gone when it seemed as though hundreds of family members would descend on one home or another, tell tall tales that grew taller as each year passed, devour monstrous quantities of heart healthy fried foods, and squeeze years of catching up into the space of an afternoon.
Mine is a large, noisy, interesting tribe. Not one of us utilizes -- or understands -- the concept of “dead air.” Thankfully, we all like each other. The older I get the more I realize that’s a pretty rare luxury.
Some things never change. Even now, we still allow the elder adults the seats of honor in the dining room – the big table. Kids go to the kitchen table. Everyone else, and by that I mean everyone between the ages of 19 and 56, fend for themselves.
We talk about relevant things, of course, but we also still have the usual collection of time-honored clichés that must be mined. For example, when I was a kid I can remember all the adults always saying things like, “My how you’ve grown,” or some such, and wondering how said adults could be so effortlessly dorky, un-hip, un-cool, un-etcetera.
And yet, the very fact that I’m using words like “un-hip” clearly proves that I’m now that adult dork.
I do notice some common ground between the generations these days. That’s not to say my generation and my parents didn’t have common ground. It’s just that there was a border between the generations that I’m not sure exists today. For example, my brother and his son share a good bit of music in common, often swapping CDs and such. My Dad, on the other hand, would have thought listening to the Rolling Stones just to bond with one of his kids was like going to hell just to light a cigarette.
I believe music, more than anything else, is the Rubicon one ultimately crosses into adulthood. Like death, defecation, and taxes, we all must experience that defining and traumatic event – the moment you, as an adult, put on the face of righteous disgust and yell, maybe to a kid, maybe just to your steering wheel, “Cut that @#^$! off!”
I used to love blaring all my longhaired heroes at about the same decibel level as atomic testing. I used to revel in the dirty looks and righteous castigations emanating from behind the windshields of those pathetically suburban wood-paneled station wagons.
I now find a fierce desire to lob grenades at the pimp-mobile five cars ahead of me thumping beat box bass so loudly people walking five blocks away think we’re about to have a repeat of the great earthquake of 1905.
I do find comfort that my gray haired gun-slinging heroes can still pack venues like Madison Square Garden; you’ll never see Mick Jagger strutting his stuff in the Poconos. Maybe we are aging, but we refuse to grow up. I will surely be blasting The Who in my iPod even as I’m waiting for the early bird special.
But I’ll never be ready for the day I’m sitting at the head of the big table.