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I came into the world when my dad was 30 years old. I was born at the very end of the year (December 27), in 1960, which meant, at every 10-year mark, I could reflect upon an entire decade comparatively. I took careful consideration of my dad, who was 40 when I was 10, 50 when I was 20, etc. And, of course, as the new year would soon arrive, I had even more reason to assess the whole dynamic because I was always one to study annual patterns and similarities. And we all know that young men tend to measure their life progress against the guy we’d been listening to since day one.
I was already a sarcastic comedian wannabe at 10, and I recall my dad’s 40th birthday included a routine I performed as an aging man for the family. I performed a big “comb over” to hide my baldness, tucking my weight behind a big belt, and wearing my pants at chest level. Thirty years later, I was combing my own hair back (that covered a spreading bald spot), sucking my gut in every time I passed a mirror, and finding I often nodded as if I understood when I didn’t quite hear all of what my boss was saying. Since Dad had passed by the time I was 34, my extended life study didn’t go much further than his 60th birthday.
And yes, that’s where I stand at this moment in my life. I turned 60 at the end of 2020. I have a short list of things to do because of lessons learned from my father: