The getting (rid) of wisdom in the new age of old age
Say hello to Grandpa Steve. He’s 94 but our beloved columnist is not going anywhere.
“In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love,” wrote Alfred, Lord Tennyson, but the poet laureate never revealed where an older man’s thoughts might end up. Slippers and early nights after a surfeit of alcohol, I would have ventured, until the spring launch of this stylish Culture section gave me a new lease of life, which was handy, as the current one had almost expired.
So a time for renewal, of wardrobe and attitude. Chuck the cardigans and dig out (and find a tailor to let out) those flared trousers (should I wear their bottoms rolled?), frilled shirts, perhaps a New Romantic cravat; then defy the years to reacquaint myself with youth culture.
My DJ daughter tells me encouragingly that festival-goers at the bush doofs she performs at in the wilds of our national parks welcome plenty of dancing greybeards older than me, their involuntary dreadlocks swinging as they gyrate to her psytrance rhythms before sliding gently down the K-hole. (No, I have no idea what any of that means, either, but doesn’t it sound like fun?)
First, however, in this quest for self-improvement, an apology. It was embarrassing, though deeply touching, to read the online comments under my piece in the final issue of Review recently. Having had to file the column early, before I knew whether I’d be smiled upon by the paper’s custodians of culture, I was vague about the future, so much so that a few readers concluded that I was retiring, or (wishful thinking?) had been dismissed.
My wife, Sally, always sympathetic, pointed out that being cryptic isn’t the same as being clever, adding, “maybe that will teach you not to be so melodramatic”.
“What an utterly, utterly, beastly thing to say,” I screamed, throwing myself headlong at a nearby chaise longue (one of many I have dotted around the house for such moments) to sob and tear dangerously at my thinning hair. But she was right, and from now on I’ll limit myself to being dramatic, and leave the melo to someone who knows how to wield it.
Later, talking to friends in the office, I was modestly wondering why I’d been selected as one of the First Word writers (thereby delivering the implicit boast that I’d been chosen, of course, but I don’t think anyone noticed).
They snorted politely, spraying piccolos and oat-milk lattes, at my suggestion that charm or wit might have played a part in my recruitment, until one young woman said “I think it might actually be because you’re completely free”.
“Yes,” I said, projecting an elegant air of wisdom and smugness, “I suppose on reflection I am quite uninhibited, a libertarian – a fearless freethinker, if you like.”
“No, I don’t like,” she said. “I meant ‘free’ as in you don’t cost any money, unlike a proper columnist, because you already work here.”
And here’s the obverse of the old man’s embrace of the young: while you are sucking the vitality out of them like David Bowie in The Hunger, you have to endure their impertinence. Nevertheless, the restorative powers of association with precocious talent remains one of the joys of journalism, where you mix with a variety of characters of sometimes quite astonishing ability, and equally astonishing rudeness.
A couple of weeks ago another dear colleague, apparently surprised by the arrival of this year’s school holidays, brought her daughter into work for the day.
I’ve been blessed with the kind of fat face that endears me to babies and small children, who recognise and greet me as a larger version of themselves, so I was hoping for a warm reception as I was introduced to the child.
No such luck. “Say hello to Grandpa Steve,” her mother said, “he’s 94”, provoking hilarious ageist speculation about me from everyone on the Culture desk, who settled on 85 (not that far from the truth, to be honest).
“See how you feel when you’re in your 60s,” I said, taking the joke with characteristically good grace, “in the very unlikely event you cheeky buggers live long enough.”
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