There Was A Time
There Was A Time - © Kent Fletcher
October 28, 2006
There was a time when I was younger I felt as though age differences made a difference. Everyone was general placed in classes in schools by their age ranking, or at least based on the age they entered school. Of course, there were folks who were held back a year or two for insufficiently completing a required matric or who were advanced a year or two based on their excelling in a class. Those folks were just normally assimilated over the course of time so that the age differences didn't matter.
As I progressed through life, I most often time equated age differences between me and someone else as a measure of life experiences in toto. To a point that assumption is correct, yet not all the time. For instance, when I went to boot camp in the Navy I was the oldest one in the company at the ripe age of 23. A lot of those kids could run circles around me at first, but through perseverance and the goading of the Navy chiefs who were company commanders, I soon excelled in the physical aspects, thankfully. I think I even impressed some of the other boots.
When I arrived for my Navy school in Norfolk, VA, again I was older than most of the students; however, there were a few there who were equal in age because they had worked their way up through the ranks and had been selected for that particular school. So it didn't make much difference in the long run.
I finally arrived for my first duty station, OP-943 Navy Flag Plot in the Pentagon. By this time my peers were running along the same age - 24 and up - and the differences were getting foggier and foggier as the years rolled on. The only times when I was conscious of the differences was when someone asked of my background, or someone really, noticeably younger happened on the scene. On occasion I felt like Grampa Jones.
In my late 20s and early 30s the gaps were closing very subtlety. I dated a sweet young thing for a couple of months in Arlington, VA, and while there was an obvious difference, our times together made up for it. I still had the stamina to flow with the younger generation then, and I felt good about it.
A couple of weeks ago my high school celebrated its 100th anniversary. There were folks there from the classes of the 1930s forward, some who I knew personally, a lot of whom I did not. I visited with folks who were in my on Class of '64, obviously, but also on the classes on either side. And you know what? There was no succinct differences in looks, in actions, in remembrances. It's as though we were all raised in the same community, and we were, the only differences being where we've been in life, what experiences we've had outside the community surroundings, whether we've left "home" or not.
I marveled at the dancers on Saturday night, boogieing down like they were still in high school. Well, most of them anyway. Young and old, gray-haired and no-haired, skinny and heavy, a few black folks who have graduated in the years after integration and white folks. The celebration as a whole was definitely enjoyed by all, I think. I know I enjoyed it, and I really hated to see the weekend end.
As I wrote a friend earlier today, "And I guess my conversations with Kenny at the dance were a wonder, too, as I know we were in different circles in high school. But our evolutions over time, with different lifestyles, with different events in our lives have also made us closer.
"I noticed this, too, with most all the folks I saw, I spoke with, and others I just gazed upon. At 60, or in the vicinity of 60, it seems the age differences are just no-brainers, as we are all part of one institution and will be forever. Age differences are for the young at heart, I suppose, for now it just doesn't really matter, does it? And all the life experiences made by each of us doesn't really matter, either, as long as we know someone else, as long as we 'stay in touch', albeit a phone call, an email, a letter, just knowing an acquaintance, a friend is out there, somewhere, doing his or her thing."
What a neat feeling to be part of the seniors of the world and yet still have a feeling of youth and ambition, enough so that while I age, there are still things and places I want to do and see. But most of all I want to "stay in touch" with my friends and acquaintances during my life.
October 28, 2006
There was a time when I was younger I felt as though age differences made a difference. Everyone was general placed in classes in schools by their age ranking, or at least based on the age they entered school. Of course, there were folks who were held back a year or two for insufficiently completing a required matric or who were advanced a year or two based on their excelling in a class. Those folks were just normally assimilated over the course of time so that the age differences didn't matter.
As I progressed through life, I most often time equated age differences between me and someone else as a measure of life experiences in toto. To a point that assumption is correct, yet not all the time. For instance, when I went to boot camp in the Navy I was the oldest one in the company at the ripe age of 23. A lot of those kids could run circles around me at first, but through perseverance and the goading of the Navy chiefs who were company commanders, I soon excelled in the physical aspects, thankfully. I think I even impressed some of the other boots.
When I arrived for my Navy school in Norfolk, VA, again I was older than most of the students; however, there were a few there who were equal in age because they had worked their way up through the ranks and had been selected for that particular school. So it didn't make much difference in the long run.
I finally arrived for my first duty station, OP-943 Navy Flag Plot in the Pentagon. By this time my peers were running along the same age - 24 and up - and the differences were getting foggier and foggier as the years rolled on. The only times when I was conscious of the differences was when someone asked of my background, or someone really, noticeably younger happened on the scene. On occasion I felt like Grampa Jones.
In my late 20s and early 30s the gaps were closing very subtlety. I dated a sweet young thing for a couple of months in Arlington, VA, and while there was an obvious difference, our times together made up for it. I still had the stamina to flow with the younger generation then, and I felt good about it.
A couple of weeks ago my high school celebrated its 100th anniversary. There were folks there from the classes of the 1930s forward, some who I knew personally, a lot of whom I did not. I visited with folks who were in my on Class of '64, obviously, but also on the classes on either side. And you know what? There was no succinct differences in looks, in actions, in remembrances. It's as though we were all raised in the same community, and we were, the only differences being where we've been in life, what experiences we've had outside the community surroundings, whether we've left "home" or not.
I marveled at the dancers on Saturday night, boogieing down like they were still in high school. Well, most of them anyway. Young and old, gray-haired and no-haired, skinny and heavy, a few black folks who have graduated in the years after integration and white folks. The celebration as a whole was definitely enjoyed by all, I think. I know I enjoyed it, and I really hated to see the weekend end.
As I wrote a friend earlier today, "And I guess my conversations with Kenny at the dance were a wonder, too, as I know we were in different circles in high school. But our evolutions over time, with different lifestyles, with different events in our lives have also made us closer.
"I noticed this, too, with most all the folks I saw, I spoke with, and others I just gazed upon. At 60, or in the vicinity of 60, it seems the age differences are just no-brainers, as we are all part of one institution and will be forever. Age differences are for the young at heart, I suppose, for now it just doesn't really matter, does it? And all the life experiences made by each of us doesn't really matter, either, as long as we know someone else, as long as we 'stay in touch', albeit a phone call, an email, a letter, just knowing an acquaintance, a friend is out there, somewhere, doing his or her thing."
What a neat feeling to be part of the seniors of the world and yet still have a feeling of youth and ambition, enough so that while I age, there are still things and places I want to do and see. But most of all I want to "stay in touch" with my friends and acquaintances during my life.
posted by Fletch @ 9:48 AM
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