This quote from George Clooney caught my eye the other day…
“The best advice I ever heard in life was from my aunt – the great singer Rosemary Clooney: ‘Don’t be afraid of waking up in your 70s afraid you didn’t do anything you set out to do wanted at 20. Do everything without fear of failure. That way you’ll know you at least tried.’ These words have been ringing in my head a lot in recent years.” George Clooney
Aside –
I find a touch of irony in those words, shared to one very famous person from another famous person. What else could either one of them have accomplished? Yet another hit record? Yet another hit Broadway play?
Oh well –
I’m right there with you, George. Those words popped up a lot in my early 70’s, until I realized
!. That I’d done what I dreamed of (some modest dreams, some not) and
2. I wouldn’t be doing any of that any more, so time to begin living with the memories.
But taking one step beyond Rosemary’s thoughts on “that way, you’ll at least know you tried.” Hell yes we tried, now what do we do with the memories, when it’s all behind us? Sit and remember them all day? I’ve done that. It’s overrated, and a little goes a long way. After all, we’ve just finished spending our entire lives doing stuff! How are we supposed to just stop and not do any more? For most of us, our histories are full of adventure, challenges, and successes. Why not share some of them? Did Rosemary have any advice about that? Most likely she said all that before she was 70.
Anyway, I pour another cup of coffee and try to think of who might enjoy hearing or seeing some of my history. It might be the next step after sliding into home base, tired, broken and dirty, with only a few participation trophies and a ton of good memories to show for it all.
We did some of that stuff in my town. Here’s my life in a nutshell. Fasten your seat belt –
Tap dancer, 1949 – ’58
Gas station attendant in Montana in ’63 -’64
Gold miner in Montana in ’65
Berklee School of Music, Boston, ’64 – ’67
Audio engineer in Boston in ’70
Composer/arranger for Doppler Studios, Atlanta ’75 – ’87
Conducting the London Philharmonic orchestra in London in ’85
Family, ’85 – 2004
Sound man on the Peruvian Amazon in 94
Back to jazz piano in Atlanta, 2004
Retired back to Montana, 2005
moved to Whidbey Island 2012
See how that works? Shazam! Snippets of a whole lifetime in 30 seconds! The pics above were cherry-picked. I have so many pictures of times and places in my life, as photography was one of my hobbies. Pictures help so much in remembering, sometimes a good pic will put you right there. Music is the big Kahuna of memories, also old videos, scrapbooks, things that kick up memories right away. Not that I need them, my memory is the one remaining thing that can easily work overtime these days.
But I have to tell you, George, the ’70’s weren’t a problem. Now the ’80’s… different story. I’ve had to come to the realization that old age, any old age, is a huge exercise in acceptance. Why? Because every morning when you creak and groan out of bed, you are instantly reminded that you’re old now, and you’re never going to be young and energetic again. If you don’t learn to handle those early morning thoughts gracefully, your whole day is going to go the wrong way, and you’ll probably end up going curmudgeon.
One major problem in being old is the misperception others have of us. I know we appear useless and many wish we’d just get out of the way. Hell, so do we! But we have these problems, these problems of energy and ability, and the lack thereof. I can’t move fast any more, and I can’t do much. What I want the younger generation to realize is that we lived busy, active lives probably longer than they’ve even been alive. And though we appear old, slow and useless, many of us have had fascinating, productive lives, even if you can’t see that by looking at us.
So once again, from the Clooneys – “The best advice I ever heard in life was from my aunt – the great singer Rosemary Clooney: Don’t be afraid of waking up in your 70s afraid you didn’t do anything you set out to do wanted at 20. Do everything without fear of failure. That way you’ll know you at least tried. These words have been ringing in my head a lot in recent years.” George Clooney
Well, we weren’t afraid, Rosemary and even if we were, occasionally, we did what you told George… we tried! Better, we tried and succeeded. We’re not afraid of what we might not have accomplished, because we accomplished so much! We heeded your advice, without ever knowing you, without ever hearing your words. And while we didn’t reach the ‘star’ status you reached as a fine singer, still we had families, raised successful children, provided for our families and hopefully affected a lot of people’s lives in a lot of positive ways.
All these busy, stressful days you younger ones are living now, we’ve also lived those busy, stressful days, years and years of them. And we lived them without the internet, without cell phones, without GPS… and most of us did great. We survived the occasional traumatic events that we all have to deal with and were successful members of our communities. None of my pals were ever convicted of a crime, none spent a day in jail, unless visiting someone who was. So yeah, we know what you younger ones are going through… we’ve done all that already.
And here we are. We’ve arrived in our ’70’s (and ’80’s) and we remember we not only “at least tried” but often succeeded on several levels. What now? If our names and our personas don’t happen to carry the weight of street recognition, like Rosemary Clooney, or George Clooney, then what? Are we content to let our work, our purpose, our history slide silently into oblivion?
Well, we could, I suppose, if our egos have been tucked safely away in the attic. But on the supposition that we are still quite a bit of what we once were, at least inside, then simple pride alone, pride in our successes, pride in what we are leaving behind… all that should come into play at some point, somehow. And, driven to share what we accomplished, what we know, what we have learned, we would probably be seen as egotistical old fools who can’t let the past go.
That’s not really true though, is it? And even if it were, do we still care what others think? If sharing our life’s work with others helps us sleep better at night at this point in our life, isn’t that worth more than caring what others might think? My mom used to say, “it’s a poor dog that won’t wag its own tail.”
I used to share some of my better stories with friends and family. I noticed that some of them pretended to be entertained, or amused, but ultimately I found that while they really did listen, they were quietly comparing some of their experiences with mine and, not liking the comparison, deciding I was bragging, or worse, lying. How could I tell? Easy… by noting their responses. Most people can’t hide jealousy, or disapproval. There’s nothing like silence or a slight chill in the air to give one a clue. And if they tried to one-up me, I’d let them and applaud their story. It’s not hard to know who’s in your corner and who has taken an alternate route.
And so I hope everyone over 70 will share what they’ve lived, what they’ve accomplished and what they are proud to leave behind. My dad was a good story-teller, and he made sure I knew of his best stories, often in triplicate. He’d tell them to me from time to time, and I heard him tell them to others. There wasn’t a lame tale in the bunch, and they were mostly memorable enough that he didn’t have to write them. As it turned out, I wrote many of them for him in my book, “I Didn’t Come Here And I’m Not Leaving.”
God he had a great life, lived to be 84. And he shared it with whomever would listen. I suggest you do the same… start writing it, maybe tell a story or two to your kids or grand kids. Find some old pictures, remember and share them. It’s cathartic… whatever that means.
Steve Hulse
He isn’t a loony, or even a goony
And never would anyone say he’s baboony
As women all over the world still get moony
For George.