The Gifts of Growing Older

A Little Wisdom from the Stuffed Potatoes

Illustration by Gerry O’Neill

SOMEONE ONCE SAID to me that it's not happiness that makes one grateful, but gratitude that makes one happy.

Looking back, I may have seen this poetic syllogism scrawled on an ancient stone wall several years ago while hiking with my wife in Tuscany (where every graffiti artist is a philosopher-in-training). Or maybe I heard Oprah Winfrey say it in one of her SuperSoul Conversations that the aforementioned wife suggested that I listen to on long drives. Whoever said it, I'm grateful for its pithy wisdom because I've suddenly reached an age where I know it to be true.

Back in February, I turned 72, an age of wisdom I’m fully prepared to savor and appreciate.

In truth, I've enjoyed getting older and slowing down a bit, giving me more time to walk the dogs at dawn and take notice the changing colors of the evening sky. Also, I finally moved up to the senior tees at the golf club — finding bits of my old game in the process. Talk about a gift from the gods!

Also, I am not alone in this epic journey into the great gray age and the unknown, as my late father - who lived a full and active life right up to a week before he died at 80 - used to joke. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 69.2 million baby boomers alive and kicking today in America, the second largest population group next to our millennial children (73.9 million born between 1981 and 1996 ).

My particular group was born in 1953 ands falls somewhere in the lower middle of the boomer years between 1946 and 1964. According to the latest actuarial projections used by our friends at the slimmed-down Social Security Administration to calculate how much longer the agency will have to give us back all the money we spent decades putting into the system, my age and gender group - males in their early 70s - can expect to live another 14.5 years, while our female counterparts come in at a 16.75.

Good for them, I say! Sell the house, dump the stocks, give away the dog and go sit on a beautiful beach in Tahiti for the rest of your days!

By the way, that's exactly what my cheeky and younger wife Wendy says she plans to do with her giddy 10 extra years after I check out of the Hotel California.

Meanwhile, according to the CDC's Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), life expectancy at birth in the United States declined nearly a full year from 2020 to 2021, a worrying dip from 77.0 to 76.1 years that is the lowest level since 1996, probably due to COVID. The 0.9 year drop in life expectancy in 2021, along with a 1.8 year drop in 2020, was the biggest two-year decline since 1921-1923, years in which the Spanish flu wiped out millions worldwide, including my own maternal grandmother. Actuarially speaking, it could be worse, of course.

Afghanistan's current life expectancy is just a hair over 56 years, considerably shorter if the Taliban's Morality Police catch you whispering about the need to educate girls and women. Singapore's life expectancy, on the other hand, is a bonny 86.5 years. Perhaps this means that Dame Wendy - the future merry widow - should consider moving there instead of Tahiti (which has a mere life expectancy of 78.82 years) where she's likely to make lots of older gal pals living the good life off the insurance money on a lovely Asian beach.

As I pointed out to her, Singaporeans are obsessed with public cleanliness and strict social order. Littering, chewing gum in public or failing to flush a public toilet can land you a whopping $1,000 fine, while showing your bare feet or skin of any sort can earn you three months in jail. The sensational black one-piece my 63-year-old lover debuted at the pool last summer probably won't fly with Singapore's own Morality Police. So on second thought, maybe she’ll decide to just leave well enough alone.

That's probably the wisest thing I've learned from being with my wife for almost three decades. Instead of fretting over these dizzying actuarial numbers, as Oprah or any Tuscan street poet with spray paint can tell you, the point is to live the best life you can and be grateful for whatever time you have left.

That's exactly what my fellow members of the Stuffed Potatoes Lunch & Philosophy Club try to do on a daily basis.

For the moment, there's just three of us in the club. We meet every other week or so in the shadowy booth of a popular restaurant to discuss the current state of the world, the wonders of our grown children and the enduring mystery of our wives.

Remarkably, we each turned 72 this year in neat succession. Joe hit the mark in late January, I did so in early February, and Patrick achieved the milestone in late March. I'm told none of us actually looks “old,” though wives, golf pals and fellow Stuffed Potatoes can scarcely be considered objective sources.

For that matter, we probably don't even act like old men, save for when we complain about dodgy knees and idiots who run red lights. As a kid, I once asked my lively grandmother on her 84th birthday if she was afraid of dying. She grinned and patted my rosy little cheek. "Not a bit, sugar pie," she said. "Just afraid of falling."

None of the Stuffed Potatoes, I can reliably report, are afraid of dying. We're too busy for that. January Joe is a professional forester helping set aside beautiful lands for future generations to enjoy time in nature. Talk about a living legacy.

Patrick, the marketing whiz – I fondly call him the "Irish Antichrist" - is keeping the national economy afloat as a major figure in the home improvement industry. Last week, however, he and his band Knotted Wood debuted their first album with original songs Patrick has been quietly writing and recording for decades in his home musical studio. The industry reviews have been sensational, making Patrick an “overnight” sensation at age 72.

Couldn’t be prouder of my dear old friend and golf pal of 62 years.

As for me, I'm just a humble scribbler who is happy to be publishing his 17th book July 1, an account of my boyhood dream of someday finding and traveling the Great Wagon Road of my ancestors, the legendary Colonial era road that brought tens of thousands of European settlers to the southern wilderness throughout the 18th century. The book is called The Road That Made America — A Modern Pilgrim’s Journey on the Great Wagon Road.

When I set off down the road in late summer 2017, I thought it would take me three or four weeks to travel path of the historic 800-mile road from Philadelphia to Georgia. Instead, owing to the diverse and amazing folks I met who are keeping the old road’s stories and traditions alive, it turned into a six-year odyssey and over 100 interviews of my fellow Americans, a true labor of love that became, by journey’s end, an emotional pilgrimage for me.

Given that we Stuffed Potatoes collectively amount to 216 years of accumulated life experience, I recently put a timely question to my lunch companions: What is the most important thing you've learned in 72 years?

January Joe, our resident sage, didn't hesitate. "There are wonders ahead. Don't fight them - just surrender!" This from a lovely fellow who gets to walk in the woods for a living and surrenders most weekends to the joy of his several beautiful grand babies.

Patrick, offered with a hearty laugh. "There's no good news or bad news. It's all information. Just keep doing what you do and don't look back." This from a true aging rock-star in training.

As for me, I hope to finish half a dozen more books over the 15.5 years that I may or may not have left. Only time will tell.

In any case, the good news is that I may finally have my first grandchild on the way and my fabulous wife says she has absolutely no interest in going to Singapore or Tahiti.

This makes me one incredably happy old guy.