Oct. 10, 2002

Dear Leslie,

When I was 17 it was a very good year.

It was a very good year

for flirting with girls the best I could,

which wasn't very good,

I was shy and in between,

when I was 17.

When I was 21 it was a very good year.

It was a very good year

for a girl with brunette hair,

and legs up to there,

We had all kinds of fun,

when I was 21.

When I was 35, it was a very good year.

It was a very good year

for the seedy side of New Orleans,

there were no limousines,

just a streetcar named Desire,

When I was 35.

Only Frank Sinatra could have sung "It Was a Very Good Year" as written without sounding like a braggart. The song probably understates Frank's romantic endeavors. The rest of us did what we could.

The last verse is the part where the days are short. "I'm in the autumn of the year and thinking of my life as vintage wine from fine old kegs." It presumes that the romance of being alive ends at 35, becomes memories to be savored.

A lot of people under 35 make the same presumption.

When you're 17, 21-year-olds are a different species. At 21 you can't imagine what 35-year-olds have to live for. At 35, life beyond 50 is still unimaginable. Human beings are not programmed to project ourselves into the future.

If you did think about the future at 35 you thought people past 50 had exhausted their possibilities, were ready to start thinking about slowing down. That may be the appearance from the outside. We settle into our lives the way we do our homes.

But life inside the head and heart is so much richer for the experience of having lived a few decades beyond the milestone of getting your driver's license.

Sometime after 35, maybe in the early 40s, the seminal truth about life begins to seep into the brain: Everybody grows older and dies. We are all here to experience the seasons of aging.

Sinatra sings only of anonymous women. Age teaches a man that romance is so much better when the woman has a name and foibles and a face whose clefts and lines are very familiar to you.

When I was 52 it was a very good year.

It was a very good year

for moonflowers and puppies,

for West meeting East,

and listening for the truth,

When I was 52.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.