Two weeks from now, I turn 71 — an age which, when I was much younger, sounded like the age when you look like Burt Mustin and walk like Tim Conway's old man character. Some days, my knees do cause me to walk like the latter. But except around the knees, I don't feel that old and people who sound reasonably sincere tell me that I look years younger. Well, maybe two.
Something you don't think of until you pass 60 is that the longer you live, the more someone you know dies. You also increasingly see obits for folks who, even if they weren't friends, cause you think, "Gee, he was my age." Or worse, "Gee, he was younger than I am." We don't like things that remind us that we might not have as many years left as we once did.
And I think I've mentioned it before but I have a couple of friends who are getting on in years who can't seem to shut up about how death seems imminent. They might live a few decades more but every sentence out of their mouths lately is about death and dying and how they won't be around much longer. One in particular who passed a couple years back almost seemed to have willed himself into the grave prematurely. My philosophy is that I'll go when I go…and obsessing on it now can only get in the way of living.
So what does this have to do with what I was talking about, which was The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show? Just this: I'm really getting tired of people who have trouble with the concept that the world changes and it can't be like it was when you were 24. Or 32. Or whatever age you were when you really liked the music, the movies, the way people dressed, etc. All that stuff's supposed to change and you can't be part of the Target Audience forever.
I ran that old newspaper column the other day here — the one by Paul Jones, who I've been informed by many of you wrote for the Atlanta Constitution. I'm going to assume Mr. Jones was sincere in what he wrote that day and was not doing what some columnists and commentators do: Say something controversial just to get attention. If he didn't really believe what he wrote, others certainly did.
It's an attitude that I find increasingly common in folks my age…and I suspect it's always there when you hit 70 or so. It's that frustration that the world is changing and it doesn't revolve around your generation any longer. There are movies that aren't aimed at you. There are jokes full of references that you don't get. There are hit songs that are huge…but you never heard of the people performing them and what they have to offer isn't the kind of music you loved forty years ago.
Paul Jones wrote, of Ed Sullivan presenting the Beatles on his show…
In catering to the screaming teen-agers who find this group exciting, Sullivan has shown his contempt for the vast millions who used to find his program diverting.
Okay. That's one way to look at it. Another might be that Ed was getting one of the largest audiences in the history of television and extending the life of a TV series that had already been on the air for sixteen years. And it stayed on for another eight by booking acts like that, including The Beatles a few more times.
To the columnist from the Atlanta Constitution, it was showing contempt for the viewers. To others, it was staying relevant to changing times and giving the public what much of it wanted. Does anyone think that Ed would have stayed on the air for eight more years if instead of The Beatles, he'd booked Jerry Vale?
TO BE CONTINUED SOME MORE