75

75

As some of you good folks already know I just celebrated my 3/4th birthday, so hmmm, maybe it’s a good time to hit the Pause/Reflect button.

On my 36th birthday my father called and said, “Congratulations.  You’re halfway there.” Halfway, that is, to the then-expected life span of an American male.  So, OK, I blew past 72 three years ago and figure I have a few more (Years? Decades?) before me.  Big Hutch made it to within eight months of 100, exceeding his own prediction by twenty-eight years.  What lies ahead for me?

I have two pals who regularly send me photo collections from the 50’s and 60’s.  Pez candy dispensers.  Cap guns.  Brownie cameras.  Howdy Doody.  ‘57 Chevy convertibles.  Annette Funicello with mousket-ears on her head.  Horn and Hardardt Automats.  Roller skate keys.  Isaac and Peter have drawn a pretty doggone good bead on my nostalgia button, so whenever I open one of those collections, I might as well say, “Beam me back, Scotty.”

My family’s first TV set with a screen the size of a skillet.  The marble soda fountain at Fleisher’s Drug Store where Mable, with her long vivid fingernails, whipped up a milk shake or a lime Ricky for you.  Learning to ride a two-wheeler on the back lawn.  Up a tree with Nicky Browning.  Body surfing unsupervised in the Atlantic Ocean with Tommy Leonard.  Paddling down the Allagash River in northern Maine for eighteen days.

Wyncote Elementary School released us daily at 2:30. From then until the 5 o’clock whistle blew, nobody knew where we were and nobody cared.  If I did something really stupid, Mother would know about it before I straggled home.  If I fell off my bike and bloodied knees and elbows, Aunt Betty would hear my yowls and sit me on the toilet lid in her bathroom to apply mercurochrome and band-aids. It was the 50’s.  The world was safe.

When I go on-line these days to check my medical records or download an app, they always want to know my birthdate.  So, OK, uh, month 3, day 10, and then endless spinning of the year dial all the way back in ancient history to 1947.  1947!  WWII was a very recent memory for my parents and yours in 1947.  London and Berlin were still emerging from the rubble.  My first childhood friend, up the street, Skipper Puller . . . his dad had a wooden leg to replace the one he lost in the war.  I was named for my mother’s brother, Bill Williamson, who died in combat in 1942 on the deck of the USS Enterprise. In his den, around the corner on Hewett Road, Uncle Alan displayed the American flag, more bullet holes than red, white, and blue, that flew above the destroyer he skippered.  

When Jane first took me to her old Hawaii stomping grounds four years ago, we drove up Tantalus Drive, the twisting steep grueling site behind Honolulu of her bicycle training rides back in her triathlon days.  Halfway up I noticed the address placard at the end of a driveway: 3300.  “Jane, that’s where my college roommate grew up, Stan Tabor.  3300 Tantalus Drive.”  How did I know that?  Because back in those simple days we communicated with distant friends by hand-written letters.  Heck, in my very early days, we made telephone calls by lifting the receiver off the base and hearing a woman say, “ Number, pease.”

A perfectly reasonable definition of “curmudgeon” is someone who thinks things were better in the old days.  So, yes, I am skating on the edge of curmudgeon-hood these days and in a couple of years will be right out there in the center of the rink.

If it weren’t for Jane I’d still be paying all the bills by writing a check, sticking it in an envelope, and mailing it off the way I used to mail letters to Stan Tabor.  If it weren’t for Jane I’d be swearing at my IPad and hurling it across the room.

I used the enforced daggone COVID restrictions to buy a pair of new knees.  New shoulders soon to follow.  Other body parts underperform these days but this is a G-rated blog so I won’t bother you with the details. None of your damn business anyhow.  I’m older than my grandparents were as I remember them.  Phooey.  I’m old.  

And.

When grandson Jack clambered off the school bus yesterday he ran to me as if I were the gate to Disneyland.  He and little sis Grace made a hug sandwich with Jane and me when we left to drive home. On Tuesday I fly to Lincoln, Nebraska, where the five grandchildren on Jane’s side will shriek Papa Bill at me and crawl into my lap for stories.  I get to crank up my John Deere mower every couple of weeks and pretend I am a farmer out in the orchard.

Six years ago I learned that gratitude and grief occupy opposite sides of the same coin, a useful lesson for me now. Losing memory.  Losing strength.  Losing friends.  Sad business.  Sad business that underlines all that I have to be grateful for.  Family.  Friends. Life.  Love.  You.  

I am a very lucky guy.  

I am a very lucky guy.

17 thoughts on “75”

  1. Great reflections Bill. This week I will reach the 80th milestone, and it feels more ominous than any I’ve had before. There are unmistakable signs of continuing to become older, but I also feel grateful for the past and continuing value of this life. I’ve been writing some “Angus Stories”, though I’ll never be able to write as well as you do! Keep your great musings coming, we enjoy them and appreciate you tremendously! Angus and Susan

    On Sun, Mar 13, 2022 at 5:25 PM hutch adventure 2 wrote:

    > hutchadventuring posted: ” 75 As some of you good folks already know I > just celebrated my 3/4th birthday, so hmmm, maybe it’s a good time to hit > the Pause/Reflect button. On my 36th birthday my father called and said, > “Congratulations. You’re halfway there.” Halfway, t” >

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  3. Bill, we’re 5 years apart yet I have to say that the term curmudgeon suits me fairly well. I so related to your childhood memories ☺️ In fact, I missed Iowa, the snow and the fall colors enough that John and I moved back to Des Moines in August. Great to be around “old” friends like Deb and Charlie.
    Glad to hear you’re doing well.
    Julie

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  5. Well, dang. That brought me to tears, especially as some of your childhood memories are mine as well. So glad we have a writer in the family, who shares! xoxo, Anne

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  7. Saturday morning cartoon shows, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Mister Magoo, Bugs Bunny

    TV going off the air at midnight

    Memorial Day parade with Scout troops (all of them!)

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  8. Thanks for sharing your reflections, cuz. Keep smiling and sharing your enthusiasm with family, friends and the world. Sending love and traveling mercies!

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  10. You are a lucky guy and I am a lucky gal. I celebrated my 90th birthday in January. I remember when I thought that when one was 40 they had one foot in the grave. Now I have 15 years more of memories than you do. I remember the day when my friend Roy Murakami was no longer in my class as he and his family had been sent off to an internment camp. I remember black out curtains in our home as well as rationing of food, gas and shoes. My mother saved several of the ration books that I will pass on to my children or grandchildren or whomever wants them. I remember the family gathered by the radio to listen to President Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats and I remember the day that he died, a very sad day indeed. Lots to remember.

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  11. Bill,
    Thx for the memories.
    I now have my bikes serviced at Keswick cycles which have opened a location near my home in Devon. Not sure if they were in Glenside while you were still in Wyncote. I also had tickets to see Graham Nash at the Keswick theatre, until covid cancelled the event. We did, however, see BB King there a few years before his passing.
    I had lunch with John White today. He is doing well, He’s mostly retired from the company he built, but close to 30 years on PC board of overseers.
    Cheers
    Harry

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  15. Oh little brother- how well you bring back all those great memories. We were a lucky bunch to grow up in a time of relative peace and in a safe place. And you have taken that great start and turned it into a life well lived and living. Mom and Dad would be so proud, as am I.
    Your loving big sis, Barb

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  16. Dear Bill
    A little late we wish you a Happy Birthday and many more years among us , a lot of good things. Thank you for your impressions and the pictures . It is always nice to see you with Jane and your family. Bises Colette , Andi & François

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  17. Your beautifully shared recollections, Bill, justifying your observance of being a lucky guy, lead me to wonder: Luck or the grace of God? From our years of Thursday morning breakfasts together, I speculate that we both embrace a blurry line on the answer. Norm

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