I burst out laughing recently when I saw on the waiting room table the June/July issue of AARP magazine, the publication from what was once known as the American Association of Retired Persons.
On the cover, reverberating in neon colors, a knowing smirk and dust mop hair was Rod Stewart, the English rocker whose music dominated the sound track of my freshman year at Luther College.
The perennial young superstar is now 80 years old. But his penetrating eyes and feline, ready to pounce stage pose triggered aural memories as if I was still having nightmares about missing a test for a class I never attended and wondering why in the world I enrolled in 8 a.m. speech.
“Maggie May” was Stewart’s break out song, originally released on the “B” side of the single “Reason to Believe.” It was practically on loop at the local radio station. Or if you couldn’t wait for it to come on after the next commercial, you just needed to walk down Ylvisaker dorm hall to hear it emanating from behind a door.
For a naïve college freshman, away from his little farming community home for the first time, the song’s lament of a young man trying to leave an older friend who became a lover struck a fantastical chord.
“You led me away from home, just to save you from being alone,” the song says. Here I was, away from home and feeling very alone.
“It’s late September and I really should be back in school.” Hey, it’s September and there I was, in school.
I wasn’t a rock and roll fan. The Carpenters, James Taylor and Simon and Garfunkel were more my speed. And frankly, I didn’t and don’t like Stewart’s gravelly voice. But even while writing this piece, “Maggie May” is an ear worm I can’t stop humming.
My problem with seeing Rod Stewart on the cover of AARP magazine at age 80 is that in 1971 he was just a few years older than me. And now, he’s 80. What does that make me?
We all have triggers that remind us of how we’re aging. I think of the story of a woman who looked into the window at a hair salon and saw one of her classmates from 30 years ago. She was shocked at how the woman had aged.
She went in to say hello, introduce herself and remind her they were in school at the same time. “Oh,” the woman said. “What did you teach?”
“The morning sun when it’s in your face really shows your age,” Stewart sang.
I laughed at that line in 1971, about the sun revealing age. I still didn’t shave every day and was aggravated that I looked so much younger than I actually was. People thought i was a kid. Other guys had sideburns I envied because I just knew a strip of beard down the side of my face was the key to getting girls.
I’ve matured from that, to the fact that I’m replacing all the mirrors in my house because they don’t work. I don’t know if the batteries are spent or what. But I’m certain the image they reflect is not the image I present.
I check the obituaries for any familiar names. There I see brief summaries encapsulating lives lived and lost that ended at ages younger than me. Persons both famous and anonymous whose roads on this earth ran shorter than the path I trod are signing off. Bon voyage.
Fifty-year anniversaries are cropping up. First, high school graduation, then getting drafted, then college. My wedding. Friends’ weddings, friendships started, events I participated in a half century ago.
About the time Rod Stewart struck it big with Maggie May.
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