The Cheap Seats

I was stopped dead in my tracks last week by an innocent question I posed to my daughter as we were driving to her dance team rehearsal. As soon as the words tumbled out of my mouth, I was struck dumb by how odd my request would have sounded a generation ago. Back then my query would have been met with a puzzled, "Are you nuts?" expression. But now such a question is commonplace, passing the lips of millions of parents, millions of times a day. "Do you have your phone with you?" Twenty-five years ago such a question would have involved carrying a "mobile" phone the size of a shoebox, the kind that a moviegoer sees a soldier in a war film using to call in an airstrike. Now phones are the size of a deck of cards and can do so much more than send and receive calls. The present truly is more incredible than we ever dreamed the future would be. The commonplace question I asked my daughter got me thinking about other watershed moments in recent hist...

In case you’re keeping track (and I hope you’re not), I have referred to myself as middle-aged at least once in each of the first five posts to The Cheap Seats blog, not to mention the tagline, Musings of a Middle-aged Man . Without realizing this, I have apparently struck a nerve with some readers out there (“Bergy, I’ve got a bone to pick with you!”) whose age and mine are in the same ballpark. So naturally, I had to make it this week’s post topic – what is middle-aged anyway? But first let me back up and explain my reasons for referring to myself as middle-aged. Obviously, by the numbers, I am middle-aged. In fact, 45 is on the downside of the current life expectancy for the average American male at birth (75.6), or female (81) for that matter. Even by mid-century, the life expectancy for all Americans is estimated to rise only another 5-10 years. Regardless, thankfully this isn’t 1900. According to all reliable census data, at birth the average American man and woman could exp...

If you’re like me - middle-aged – you may occasionally define yourself by what you think you can no longer do, rather than by what you haven’t done yet. This process – what I call “The CAN’TS ” – is subtle. It begins casually, perhaps as a wistful backward glance at a lost opportunity or road not taken. Before you know it, the CAN’TS have gained a toehold on your attitude and outlook. I’m not referring to the many things we CAN’T physically do anymore; – that list is plenty long - I mean the wish list items we have scratched out not because we completed them, but instead because we lost sight of them. They became blurry during the years when we might have been raising children, working longer hours or paying mortgages. Simply put, “life” occasionally gets in the way of living. We all deal with life’s challenges and adversity. Some people even endure tragedy. If you have lived to a certain age, you may have already experience both. If that’s you, you had every right to lick your ...

If you have reached a point in your life like I have – middle-age – you may have noticed that certain feats that we all once performed with skill and ease now take extreme effort and serious concentration.  Toe-touching and reading a menu come immediately to mind. Still, most of us eventually accept our physical decline in stride, readjust expectations and set new, more realistic goals. Acceptance is harder for some of us than others, but ultimately most of us end up in the same place.  Those people who can’t probably opt for cosmetic surgery. This means I am now satisfied with touching my knees and getting bifocals. Eh, so be it. Recently, however, I have noticed that not just individual skills, but once common everyday occurrences are fading from existence. They aren’t fading because minds and bodies are falling apart. Instead, they are disappearing simply from lack of use. The first time I became aware of this, I was startled. And then the truth became clear....