Thursday, January 6, 2011

He threw his clock out the window

Yes, time sure does fly. One of my greatest friends is turning 35 years old today. He mentioned to me, “Hey, remember when that was old”.  I do remember when someone that old would talk to us when we were teenagers. 35 seemed a million years away. As it turned out, it wasn’t a million years away, but certainly a million experiences.

It’s funny how your memory gets longer as your life gets shorter. Thank you Mr. Van Halen, for that little nugget of wisdom; courtesy of the old Right Now video. See, we’re old enough to remember that video. Actually we can remember a time before MTV for that matter.  Of course MTV doesn’t even play videos anymore so I guess there’s a whole new generation that has no idea what music television is all about.

How do you explain that to a kid?
“What does the M in MTV stand for?” Asked little Johnny.
“It stands for Music, as in Music Television”, I replied.
“Music television? What’s that? All that station ever shows are muscle bound idiots and sluts drinking their faces off in places like Miami or Atlantic City”. Replied little Johnny.
“Well, once upon a time they showed music videos”.
“What’s a music video?”

I think I’ve made my point. Poor little Johnny. Never to have known the joy of that new Peter Gabriel video or the sexual innuendos of Great White; how tragic. Poor little Johnny. Well, at least he has the interweb to look up those dinosaurs.

I digress, there are so many experiences that have made up our history and it is fun to remember them when one hits a milestone birthday like 35. Hundreds of years ago you were damn lucky to even make it to 35 years old, and if you did you were the town elder. You probably needed a cane to walk and your hair was completely gray back then.      

Here’s to experience. May it bless us all with millions more opportunities to stretch our memories.

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