Tuesday, November 2, 2021

72 Year Olds of the World Unite!

Mao Zedong

Is it fair to compare an individual to a nation state, where strength lies in numbers and productivity is a result of collective action? Still, while today's generation of baby boomers enters the last state of their lives Israel declared its independence and evolved from being an agrarian society to a major economic force in the Middle East. Of course, 72 year olds, whose lives paralleled the advent of Communist China have a real problem in comparing themselves to a country of 1.5 billion inhabitants which has survived a Cultural Revolution in which the urban intelligentsia was exiled to the provinces in a program of re-education that’s a far cry from spending your junior year in Paris. Alaska and Hawaii both became states in l959 which may give those in their early 60s a run for their money. What’s the motto? Don’t to measure yourself against a state or country—even when they’re in your age group. You’re always going to come up short. 

Read "Lamb Stewed" by Francis Levy, Dispatches from the Poetry Wars

and listen to "Rock Around the Clock" (1955) by Bill Haley and His Comets

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