She Said:

“Hello,” I answered groggily when my phone rang Saturday morning.

“Mom? Are you OK?” my daughter asked, alarmed. “You sound hoarse.”

“Of course I’m OK,” I replied with some annoyance. “I just woke up,”

“Why are you sleeping so late?” she demanded.

“Because I was writing until about 2 am, drank half a bottle of wine last night and I don’t have a toddler running around my house,” I growled.

I know what’s going on. My kid - yes, I still think of her as that child who used to toddle up to me and say, “smell my finger” - thinks I’m old. 

Ergo, I will probably die in the next week or so from COVID-19 unless she nags me about staying away from germs and by doling out stingy visits with my granddaughter.

Dave, I can’t be the only Baby Boomer who bristles when people treat me like what they think I am: Ancient. 

I ran a half marathon not that long ago and walked 7 miles today.

For years, people have been telling us that 60 is the new 30. Shoot, when I look at pictures of my grandmother at my age - she had snowy dandelion hair, wore colorful house dresses, walked with a cane and thought Lawrence Welk was a sexy dude - I believe it.

My grandmother’s favorite saying was: “Act your age.”

I loved her, but ignored her.

Sure, our parts are wearing out: we all need glasses to read, replacement joints, hair coloring and most of us could stand a little cosmetic surgery, but we’re far from elderly. 

We’ve survived plenty by now. We’ve shed most of our dangerous habits. We’re capable of staving off germs without the over-weaning advice of kids who were on our health insurance until a couple of years ago. Someone remind them that we taught them how to wash their hands. 

Fact is, I don’t want to be mothered. I want to BE a mother. 

He Said:

Relax, Kerry. Not often I say so, but you’re right: You are not your grandmother, and I’m not my grandfather.  I’ve been through that “Oh, no, am I now my grandparents?” routine in my head, but I’ve managed to logic my way outta that trap.

Yes, there’s a lot of treacle about how “80 is the new 60,” or “70 is the new 50,” or whatever. But for all the cheesiness, there’s a nugget of truth in there.  I’m 70, you are “x” number of years younger — a slim single digit, ahem — but we definitely are different from our grandparents at that age, and we hate being compared to them.

When my Grandpa Evans was my age, he was walking with a cane and the family had taken his car keys. He did not have guys calling him from Mumbai trying to sell him knock-off Viagra — and I can only imagine Grandma Evans’ reaction if he’d scored some. 

My Grandma Addis, who lived with us? She wasn’t over at the park playing pickleball in her ‘70s, like my wife Kay. On a good day, Grandma Addis could maybe pickle some cucumbers, then need help tightening the Mason Jar lids.

My grandparents were born in the late 1890s, literally in the days of covered wagons. Life expectancy at birth was about 47 then; it’s about 78 now. People back then, if they made it to old age, were a hell of a lot “older” at 70 than folks are today. And for good reason.

Consider: By the time our grandparents were the age we are now, Kerry, they’d been through WWI, the Spanish Flu, Prohibition, the Great Depression, WWII, nuke scares and the JFK assassination. Along the way they’d somehow managed to work their jobs and raise our parents and our aunts and uncles — with no help from Amazon, Netflix or iPads. No bloody wonder they were worn out. 

During the Depression, our grandmas were planting root vegetables, Kerry, not running quarantine blockades for a hair-root touch up, like ... well ... (at this point I have to leave the suspects anonymous for fear that either of them might sever my carotid with a pair of cuticle scissors).

Our grandparents didn’t have our docs and miracle-meds. Nobody did preventive medicine back then.  Our grandparents only went to a doctor if they were sick, not as a means to avoid getting sick.  

By their ‘70s they were worn and bent and shuffling, not jetting off to Dublin for an Elton John concert, as Kay and I did a couple of months ago. Their big treat was Groucho Marx on a black-and-white TV before shutting down for bed at 9 p.m.

Dinner at a 4-star Michelin joint? I honestly can’t recall visiting so much as a Ruby Tuesday’s with any of my grandparents, even if we’d had them back then. “Dinner out” might have meant a pork chop on the porch swing on a hot summer’s night.  

No, Kerry, you’re not your grandmother. Your Irish grandma, like Kay’s, fled the potato famine; our idea of a potato famine is when we run outta fingerlings to roast up with a slab of fresh salmon. 

And that’s a good thing — generations of Dougherty grandmas past would be happy for you. Take heart in that.