For reasons I do not understand, but probably could if I engaged in sufficient self-reflection, I often think of some of the lyrics to a 1968 Jefferson Airplane tune written by Grace Slick:
Lather was thirty years old today,
And Lather came foam from his tongue.
He looked at me eyes wide and plainly said,
Is it true that I’m no longer young?But Lather still finds it a nice thing to do,
To lie about nude in the sand,
Drawing pictures of mountains that look like bumps,
And thrashing the air with his hands.
I do know this. The age at which one wonders whether any given birthday milestone “is still young” increases annually up to, and including, sixty-one. I suspect it continues forever.
