Fading Into History
The last great talk show host retires and a generation fades into history.
This was the headline I woke up to this morning on my Facebook page. Being of the same generation as David Letterman, I took offense.
My first thought was, “What idiot thirty-something wrote this?” My second thought was that this doesn’t bode well for Hillary. My third thought was…. Well, I guess I’m lucky to remember the first two.
There was a time when Letterman was a nightly fixture in my house. So much so that when my then 11 year old daughter told me she was going to write him and ask him to be my date for my upcoming high school class reunion, I told her to go for it.
I don’t know if she wrote the letter or not. All I know is he didn’t show up and I didn’t hold it against him, even though I was pretty sure he would have fit right in and enjoyed the night of 60's music and reliving ever single play of the Casey-Marshall football match of 1969.
He’s always seemed like the boy next door to me. A lot like the one in high school biology class who dropped a jar full of formaldehyde frog onto the floor and stood up amid the broken glass and splattered frog and got even the teacher to laugh when, straight-faced, he said, “Well, at least the lid’s still good.”
I never was able to get tickets for his show, but I did see him once on an airplane when I was walking through first class on my way to coach. I wish I had had my daughter with me, who might have had the nerve to call him out for not showing up for my reunion. Me? I stopped briefly and stared, but walked on, adding the whole experience somewhere near the top of my “Top Ten Things I Wish I Had Done.” After all, I had another reunion coming up.
My sister wrote a short piece the other day about finding both herself and her husband on the very top limb of their living family trees. It’s one of those rude awakenings that we all have as we age. Sort of like discovering that the pants in your closet with elastic waists now outnumber the ones with buttons, or that there are people out there telling you that your generation is fading into history.
I’m at the top of that living tree too, although my sister sitting in front of me gives me a little bit of a buffer. I’m nowhere near ready to step aside or fade away.
Letterman probably wasn’t ready either.
It might be a good time to invite him to my 50 year reunion.
The last great talk show host retires and a generation fades into history.
This was the headline I woke up to this morning on my Facebook page. Being of the same generation as David Letterman, I took offense.
My first thought was, “What idiot thirty-something wrote this?” My second thought was that this doesn’t bode well for Hillary. My third thought was…. Well, I guess I’m lucky to remember the first two.
There was a time when Letterman was a nightly fixture in my house. So much so that when my then 11 year old daughter told me she was going to write him and ask him to be my date for my upcoming high school class reunion, I told her to go for it.
I don’t know if she wrote the letter or not. All I know is he didn’t show up and I didn’t hold it against him, even though I was pretty sure he would have fit right in and enjoyed the night of 60's music and reliving ever single play of the Casey-Marshall football match of 1969.
He’s always seemed like the boy next door to me. A lot like the one in high school biology class who dropped a jar full of formaldehyde frog onto the floor and stood up amid the broken glass and splattered frog and got even the teacher to laugh when, straight-faced, he said, “Well, at least the lid’s still good.”
I never was able to get tickets for his show, but I did see him once on an airplane when I was walking through first class on my way to coach. I wish I had had my daughter with me, who might have had the nerve to call him out for not showing up for my reunion. Me? I stopped briefly and stared, but walked on, adding the whole experience somewhere near the top of my “Top Ten Things I Wish I Had Done.” After all, I had another reunion coming up.
My sister wrote a short piece the other day about finding both herself and her husband on the very top limb of their living family trees. It’s one of those rude awakenings that we all have as we age. Sort of like discovering that the pants in your closet with elastic waists now outnumber the ones with buttons, or that there are people out there telling you that your generation is fading into history.
I’m at the top of that living tree too, although my sister sitting in front of me gives me a little bit of a buffer. I’m nowhere near ready to step aside or fade away.
Letterman probably wasn’t ready either.
It might be a good time to invite him to my 50 year reunion.
Originally published at oursalon.ning.com.
