My Midlife Crisis

 In the early Spring of 1967 my father returned from a business trip to San Francisco sporting a lavender Nehru jacket, wide-stripe, brown on beige elephant bells and improbably pointy, jet-black Beatle-boots. A massive, golden Peace symbol hung from the heavy rope of cheap beads around his neck and what appeared to be ruffled cuffs protruded from his sleeves, accentuating an array of mood rings that might have shamed Liberace. 

 

   Dad had been out west for several weeks helping the State of California set up an Arts Council - a job which necessitated rubbing elbows with artists and entertainers – and had spent an evening at the Fillmore Auditorium in the company of Bill Graham to see Wildflower, an entirely forgotten group of the moment that neither of us had ever heard of. He brought us each a copy of  Wildflower's debut album, which we viewed with contempt and never bothered to play.

   Had my brother and I been aware of the concept of the “midlife crisis”, we might have recognized the onset of this condition and regarded Dad's sudden transformation more charitably, but, to a pair of aspiring hippies itching to let their hair grow over their oxford collars, the old man's new ensemble was ridiculous and vaguely threatening. Even before the Summer of Love we knew there was something in the air and Dad's impending embrace of our nascent culture was simply not acceptable. Nonetheless, an  aura of permissiveness and experimentation accompanied Dad's transformation: he bought a massive wok and took up ethnic cuisine, invited other grown-ups in bell bottoms to parties where they listened to Wildflower and played Twister, and generally ignored my brother and me as we stumbled and poked our way around the periphery of the Age of Aquarius.

   The real crises may have arisen the following year when Dad just as suddenly gave up exotic food and spices – including ginger and soy sauce - because, according to my mother, they reminded him of Hippies. He derided  Hubert Humphrey and Gene McCarthy, the candidates of his Minnesota roots, as “pantywaists” and announced his intention to vote for Richard Nixon. He bought a fifty gallon drum of Paraquat and began spraying. He put Lester Lanin and Percy Faith back on the hi-fi and generally ignored my brother and me as we contemplated marching on Washington and Wall Street.

   Given the date of death for each of my parents – if we go strictly by the numbers here – my own midlife crisis must have occurred in 1992, when I was 37. After years of grim solitude and enforced bachelorhood I quite suddenly met and married my wife, Suzanne, acquiring in one fell swoop an instant family in the form of our daughter, Zinzi and a magnificent two-year-old golden retriever named Ryster. I sold the cream-puff, 1964 Mercury Comet, bought a house and started worrying about a college fund. I created a feeble resume and applied for a job in the admissions department of the Portland School of Art, for which I submitted to an equally feeble and ultimately fruitless interview. We've been married, for better or worse, ever since.

   And that's it. No torrid affairs, no Lamborghini, no walk on the wild side. No cerise Mohawk, nose ring or tiny tattoo. No conversion to Bookmanism or Judaism. No skinny jeans, no beret, not even a spaniel; we've had four more goldens since Ryster. Of course, what with the much touted longevity available through modern medicine, the best may be yet to come and it's remotely possible that I haven't reached mid life yet. I'll try to keep you posted, but I think you'll know it when you see it.....