Roger Dodger, You Old Codger

Nothing encourages repetition like positive reinforcement, and I am proud to say that all four of my loyal followers enjoyed my first two blogs.

From the other side, 60 isn’t so bad, especially since I intend to celebrate my birthday all year. As my New York-savvy cousin confided, “The best thing about turning 60 is that you are not 70,” and “you begin to accept that priority seat more graciously when it is offered to you on the subway.”

Disney celebrated Disneyland turning 50 for a solid 18 months a few years ago, and Israel just completed a year-long celebration of its 60th anniversary. That means I am a bit younger than the state of Israel, which by everyone’s measure is a young, vibrant country.  I take comfort in that thought.

That confidence aside, I look forward to growing older - if it means growing wiser. Everything else declines or is lost with age, but wisdom grows with the years.  I think it was an old Russian blogger who first said, “The wit of one becomes the wisdom of many.”

While some may try to reduce such maxims to trivia, we would be a poorer nation if we lost the colorful voices of the past - idioms like "Rodger Dodger, You Old Codger" from the greatest generation. There's a great backstory there. Such sayings are like literary time capsules that reveal their hidden truths to those who take the time to unearth them.

The me generation hasn't taken the time to learn, or pass on, such fragments of history. And to the millenial generation, the past is anything older than its last tweet.  I have more hope for the emerging I generation – I pod, I phone, I tunes – coming so quickly on its heels. 

Putting the world into a phrase is a masterful art. I will Tweet on.