A Final Thought: When I’m Sixty-Four

Last Saturday, I turned 64 and went around the house singing “When I’m Sixty-Four” by The Beatles. Paul McCartney wrote the lyrics when he was just 14, then updated the song later with help from John Lennon, who suggested adding “grandchildren on my knee.” The song was released on June 1, 1967:

When I get older, losing my hair

Many years from now,

Will you still be sending me a valentine,

birthday greetings, bottle of wine?

If I’d been out till quarter to three,

Would you lock the door?

Will you still need me, will you still feed me,

When I’m sixty four? Ooh

You’ll be older too.

Ah, and if you say the word,

I could stay with you.

I could be handy mending a fuse

When your lights have gone.

You can knit a sweater by the fireside,

Sunday mornings, go for a ride.

Doing the garden, digging the weeds,

Who could ask for more?

Will you still need me, will you still feed me,

When I’m sixty four?

Ev’ry summer we can rent a cottage

In the Isle of Wight if it’s not too dear.

We shall scrimp and save.

Grandchildren on your knee;

Vera, Chuck and Dave.

Send me a postcard, drop me a line,

stating point of view.

Indicate precisely what you mean to say,

yours sincerely, wasting away.

Give me your answer, fill in a form,

Mine forevermore.

Will you still need me, will you still feed me,

When I’m sixty four? Ho!

McCartney was very insightful for a young teenager. He was not far off, although these days I don’t replace fuses; I just flip the breaker in the electrical panel. My wife doesn’t know how to knit, but she can crochet, and she sometimes does so by the fire. We do a lot of gardening and “digging the weeds,” and we have three grandchildren (though their names are not Vera, Chuck, or Dave), and we often go for Sunday drives in the Cuyahoga Valley.

But I could never stay out “till quarter to three.” (We go to bed after Jeopardy!)

My wife and I still need each other and still feed each other. In fact, one of our New Year’s resolutions is to save money and be healthier by not eating out all the time, so we divided up meal prep responsibilities. I cook on Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays; she cooks on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays; and we go out on Wednesdays.

That’s the plan, but so far there have been plenty of exceptions, including birthday dinners, bouts with the flu, and a new sushi restaurant we had to try.

My daughters and their husbands are all lamenting turning 40 about now, and I tell them not to worry. “Your 30s, 40s, and 50s are not that different,” I explain. “It’s your 60s when everything starts to fall apart.”

I hurt my left knee running this summer, and when it didn’t heal after a month, I went to the orthopedic doctor, who diagnosed me with a bone bruise. “There’s not much you can do but keep weight off it,” he said. “Buy a cane.”

So I swallowed my pride and used a cane my friend Jim loaned me—an old-school wooden version with a curved handle. I liked it because you can open and close tall cabinets with it, thrust it into the air to express your frustration, and twirl it like a baton while waiting in line. Strangers hold the door for you at restaurants and get out of your way in airport terminals.

When my youngest daughter first saw me with the cane, she said, “Dad, I didn’t know you could possibly look any wiser.”

Aww. (Next, I’m going to stop combing my hair and buy a professorial tweed jacket with patches on the sleeves.)

After three months using the cane, my left knee was no better and the right one had started hurting, too. So I returned to the ortho doc who said, “Well, given that your knee is not improving and now both knees hurt and there really wasn’t an injury-causing event, it’s likely not a bone bruise. It’s arthritis.” 

“Arthritis?” I responded. “Don’t you have to be old to get arthritis?”

He looked at me over the top of his glasses—and said nothing.

We both watched as a young intern gave me a steroid shot in each knee. The next day, both knees were almost like new, but there was a downside.

I had to give back the cane.

Mitch@MimiVanderhaven.com