Today I Turn 50: 29 Take-Aways

I turn 50 today.

I was born on October 4, 1957, the same day a 184-pound aluminum sphere called Sputnik streaked skyward from 100 miles east of the Aral Sea, launching the Space Age.

1957 was somewhere just past the mid-point of the Baby Boom and turned out to be the piglet in the python--the largest birth year in the midst of the largest baby boom in U.S. history. So, at a time when the country was only 60% of its current population, we graduated the largest batch of infants ever from hospitals, and then on into high schools, colleges and the job market. The class of 1957 has been fighting for position our entire life.

At 50 I am smart enough to ask for your sympathy on this point, and wise enough not to wait around for it. Just know, as you go to the polls to vote on the bond issues to renovate and expand all of those elementary schools built in the 1960s: They were built for us.

So, we've had to adjust to the Space Age, the Cold War, the British invasion, Kaizen, the oil crisis, globalization, and the knowledge-based economy. We survived folk music and disco and grunge and Neil Diamond. We've gone from three black-and-white channels (and some very weird puppets on PBS) to satellite TV and Tivo (and, come to think of it, still some very weird puppets on PBS). We used to have a single pair of "sneakers" that we wore for any and all sports, and now have made room in our closet for running, cross-training, tennis, hiking and biking shoes.

And speaking of that, we have walk-in closets that are as big as our bathrooms used to be, and bathrooms as big as our bedrooms used to be. In fact, I grew up in a house built around 1900 that had no shower--only a bathtub in a single upstairs bathroom. We got two adults and three children cleaned and fed and out the door every morning by 7:30 a.m. We did not know at the time that we were breaking the laws of physics. (Our current metric of showers-to-family members is .8, meaning my poor, deprived daughters must negotiate the same shower in the morning.)

Our class and its Boomer kin have perhaps traveled the furthest technologically: We are the people that can program Tivo and improve reception with rabbit ears. We may have been the only junior year high school Physics class forced to learn the slide rule while hiding our Bowmar Brains under the desk. We are still capable of changing a typewriter ribbon and text-messaging with our thumbs. And, not to put too fine a point on our technological flexibility, but we know how to rip MP3 files (legally, of course) and how to tape a nickel to a tone arm of a record player so the record won't skip.

Now that I think of it, we've bought "Sympathy for the Devil" on vinyl, cassette, CD and iTunes. And we would have bought it on 8-track had that technology lasted more than five minutes. No wonder the Rolling Stones are so rich.

I suspect, given our capacity to adapt, we'll make it through the digital economy and Web 2.0, we'll weather global warming and outsourcing, we'll survive the meltdown of the nuclear family and the polar ice caps, and we'll do just fine with whatever the next half-century throws at us.

To be fair, we've had our share of breaks as well. Being born in 1957 kept us out of Vietnam and even gave us a free pass on the draft. So, what's a little competition on the home front when you can avoid being shot at in rice paddies overseas?

Being 50 creates a set of indelible markers. We are the first-graders who got off the bus to find our mothers in tears at the news of President Kennedy's shooting. We stayed up late to watch Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. We were building our careers when the Challenger exploded and were beginning to really hit our stride on 9/11.

The trip to 50 is also about perspective. The First Lady has gone from being our grandmother to our mother to someone we might have dated. High school cheerleaders have gone from being the most desirable objects in the known universe to young folk who just look very cold on frosty football Saturday mornings. The oldest veterans in professional sports, hobbling around in extended careers, are still just youngsters. We place our lives in the hands of experienced doctors twenty years younger than us, not 20 years older. We hire people in entry-level jobs who were born in 1986. We remember when "Made in Japan" meant something entirely different than it does now. We miss getting prizes in cereal boxes. We ask people to "roll up the window" in the car. We still call CDs "albums" and occasionally say "it's quarter-to-two" when our digital watch says "1:45," and we know enough about the old Moxie not to want to try the new Moxie.

It helps, of course, that we were born into the greatest country in the history of the world and have lived for the 50 greatest years of its history. Having done a bit of traveling, as well as a bit of history, I am pretty well convinced of that. It is nothing short of a miracle how democracy, a belief in the sacredness of life, and the ability to create endless amounts of wealth and intellectual capital all came together at a single time, in a single place. Add the existence of over 20 different kinds of Coke, and life has been awfully good.

So, what have I learned during my 50 years? Here are 29 of my take-aways:

1. This is how you get old: One day you wake up and your face looks tired. You take a shower and your face looks refreshed again. A few weeks or months later you wake up and your face looks tired again. This time when you shower, it still looks tired. When you go to bed you check again, and now it really looks tired. Now, you’re old.

2. Always beware of the third thing. When your boss does your review and says, "I have three things to talk with you about," you can pretty much ignore one and two. It's the third thing that matters. When your spouse does the same, it's definitely the third thing.

3. Never be the first or last person to drink from a quart of milk.

4. If you want to stay credible in front of an audience, make sure your fly is zipped up.

5. Don't ever let your Board of Directors design the company stationery.

6. Some wounds simply cannot be healed. Even so, it's a thousand times better to receive one like that than to inflict it on another.

7. The first time the barber asks "May I touch-up your ears," just say "yes."

8. If you haven't made at least 3 good enemies by the time you're 50, you're not really trying.

9. It's a turning point in your life, and not a happy one, when you understand why no-roll pant tops were invented.

10. I saw an analysis once that showed that Cal Ripken's career production would have been much better if he'd rested occasionally. I get that.

11. Here is what I know about music: Brian Wilson wrote good pop tunes but you will never convince me he was a genius. U2 could use a lot less angst and a lot more melody. If I never hear another Beatles song I'll live, and if I ever hear Free Bird again I will slit my wrists. We could remove the entire 1970s canon from music history and the only thing we'd really miss is Talking Heads, and then only occasionally. Jazz should never be played on an organ. If harps are played in heaven, accordions are played in hell. If you want to marry a starlet get a bad haircut and play lead guitar. And, the worst musical mistake generations make is to carry their old, tired songs with them through life.

12. I own a mountain bike that is as expensive as my father's first car, and my grandfather's first house. We call that progress.

13. Here is what I know about art: Picasso got up some mornings and did lousy paintings, but after he died, they have all become works of genius. That fact would humor him.

14. Sailing is the most overrated hobby in the world. The first hour is fantastic, being out on the water in the sunshine. After that, all I can think is, "Please get me back to shore so that I can do something interesting."

15. You begin to accumulate ghosts by 50. There are many people that have touched my life who are now dead but who are still real to me. They lived long, active, full, meaningful lives. To my children, they are stories, and a name on a family tree. It is a very odd feeling to have parts of your life slip away like that.

16. About death: I have this sinking feeling that the Baby Boomers may be pitied as the last generation that didn’t regularly live to be 125, or maybe even 200.

17. Write this one down: If you turn the spout of the plastic lid so it lines up with the seam of the coffee cup, you will drip coffee on your clothing on the way to work. Guaranteed.

18. The older you get, the further down on your nose you wear your glasses. It is the human equivalent of rings on a tree. Resist the temptation.

19. Always, always remember how lucky you really are. As paralyzed artist Chuck Close said, “Quadriplegics envy paraplegics. You think, 'Man, they’ve got it made.'”

20. As good as the Simpsons are, they stand on the shoulders of a moose and a squirrel. And I still hope, someday, to visit Frostbite Falls.

21. When I was growing up we played in the "backyard," and now I am supposed to maintain a perfect "lawn." Yard. Lawn. Someone will have to explain the point to me.

22. The Gospels and the Second Amendment prove that nobody, not even a Saint or a Founding Father, can get very far without a good editor.

23. When I first became a CEO I pulled aside one of my trusted board members and asked, "Any advice for a new CEO?" Without hesitation, he said, "Make your numbers." "Anything else," I asked? He thought for a second. "No. Just make your numbers." The secret to credibility? Make your numbers.

24. I was wrong. Sailing is not the most overrated hobby. Golf is. You sense there might actually be a God when you are forced into a business round and, from the second tee, you can see an approaching front of thunderstorms.

25. And speaking of God, Esquire published a interview with Him in its January 2002 issue. God said his worst mistake was letting Bill Buckner miss that groundball in 1986. Oh, and giving humans free will. He also said that there’s a fine line between praying and whining. And, of course, “When giving gifts, go heavy on the gold, light on the frankincense and myrrh.”

I agree with God on all those points.

26. And while I think of it, if I tell you Acura is better than Infinity, you'll spend all night researching it on the web. If I tell you a 2,000 year-old book is the literal and infallible voice of God, you'll nod agreement and then get on with test-driving the Infinity. Go figure.

27. Perhaps even more than God, I agree with Homer Simpson when he said, “When someone tells you your butt is on fire, you should take them at their word.”

28. I hope never to weigh as much as Sputnik.

29. And finally, it is an immutable law of the universe that that the nicer you are to your significant other when she is dressed, the more you get to see her naked.