When did I become the oldest one in the room?

I attended a nonprofit board meeting recently.  Looking from face to face at the dozen or more people around the conference table, it suddenly occurred to me:

I’m probably the oldest person in this room.

Over the next 90 minutes, my focus drifted sporadically from the business at hand (probably a function of my newly discovered seniority):

•  That guy mentioned Van Halen. The Stones, Deep Purple and Pink Floyd were in my wheelhouse, so gray hairs aside, he’s easily five years younger than me.

•  I can’t really ask these people how old they are.  Well, OK, maybe the guys, but curiosity killed the cat, and asking a woman her age (at least in my tired old generation) is suicide waiting to happen.

•  Wait a minute, Vicky’s crow’s feet are deeper than mine ... and “Vicky” – that’s straight out of the 1940s, isn’t it? ... no, she talked one time about not being able to take early retirement for five years.  I’ve got her by a year or two, at least.

Once upon a time, I was a boy wonder.  I learned to read at the tender age of 4, and was tackling newspapers, magazines and grownup novels within a couple years.

I was editor of a small-town daily at the age of 23, business editor of a mid-sized paper five years later, and headed national PR operations for a major nonprofit in five more.

Yeah, things drifted after that – a couple recessions, an entrepreneurship that didn’t fly and what-not ... but exactly when did I become the oldest person in the room?

In the car, on the way home from the board meeting, I had a long talk with myself:

“Self,” I says, “you’re getting to be kind of an old fart ... and a curmudgeonly old one at that.

“What could these young people possibly learn from me that has relevance to their everyday existence?  Heck, my idea of a new-age band is Black Sabbath, and Ozzy Osbourne’s out doing commercials for Depends these days, isn’t he?”

How in the world can I stay relevant to the huddled masses, when a multi-gizillionaire like Osborne is reduced to passing himself off as an addled old codger with a fried brain and problems with incontinence?

Relevant indeed.  Sounds like the kind of a problem a Writer might have to face on a regular basis.  Hmmmm.

Next: Part 2

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