Celebrity Birthdays

I noticed this morning in the celebrity birthday notifications that a number of people I’ve known for a long time from movies or newscasting or music seem to be much older than I want them to be. Okay, Zsa Zsa Gabor is 98, and I can accept that. To me she always seemed to be old.

But then I get to Rip Torn, 84, and Mamie Van Doren, 84. How can they be that old when I remember both as much younger (and Mamie as much sexier)? Mike Farrell is now 76, and I remember him from his M*A*S*H days when he was a relatively young doctor teaming up with Hawkeye Pierce to drive Frank Burns, Charles Winchester, and Hot Lips Houlihan crazy. How can he possibly be 76?

Tom Brokaw, who attended the U. of South Dakota a few years after I was there, is 75. Look at him. Why isn't he still anchoring the news on NBC? Why doesn't he really replace NBC's Brian Williams, who just got caught with his newscaster's pants down, caught in a flagrant lie from his past reporting in Iraq? Ah, Brian, we loved you, but now we have to let you go.

And most surprising of all, Natalie Cole is 65. But I remember her dad as one of the top pop singers of his day, of my day, and now his little girl can go on social security. Look at her. Isn't she, wasn't she, gorgeous? I splash my face with cold water and look in the mirror and there I am, this old guy who looks just like my father. Well, no, older than my dad since I’m now thirteen years older than he was when he died. Where in the world did all those years go? Down an ever-steepening ski slope, and I’m about to crash into the lodge.