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Will you still love me when I’m . . . 66?

Published on 33 Comments on Will you still love me when I’m . . . 66?

Happy Birthday to me! I was born 66 years ago at 8:02 pm, a Sunday, just as the Ed Sullivan Show came on with musical guests Tony Martin, Roger Williams, and Xavier Cugat.

The top charting song on my birthday was Ricky Nelson's "Poor Little Fool." On the following Sunday Pan Am launched the first regular transatlantic jet service from New York to Paris:

Jet service to Paris was yours for only $489.60—equivalent to $5,341 today. This was not something for the plebs. But then again, neither was the service, which featured wines poured into stemware and hot meals served on fine china on linen-covered tables.

Amos Alonzo Stagg was on the cover of Time and Mamie Eisenhower was on the cover of Life:

The New York Times from the next day tells you all the exciting stuff that happened on the 19th. Democratic gain in House likely! Dulles consults Lloyd en route to Chiang parley!

Exciting times. It was the peak year of the Baby Boom, and the month before I was born ushered in the first integrated circuit and the first credit card. Modern life revolves around both.

33 thoughts on “Will you still love me when I’m . . . 66?”

  1. kathleent

    Hi Kevin - we are both 66, both went to Pacifica, I was a band geek, went to CSULB, survived cancer and live in Irvine - small world right! Love reading your blog and wish you many more happy birthdays!!!!!

  4. Brett

    I could have sworn you talked about your "seventh decade of life" or something like that. In any case, congrats! Hope you get to 76.

    1. Bobber

      People in their sixties actually have a very strong tendency to be in their seventh decade of life. In fact, it's mathematically unavoidable.

  5. Displaced Canuck

    Welcome to your 67th year. I've been in mine for 10 months now. I hope this year is better for you than the last.

  6. QuakerInBasement

    Sixty-six?

    Why you're just a pup! There's loads to be done, son. Cats to photograph. Charts to...chart. May you see many more!

  11. dilbert dogbert

    Born in 1935 at almost the bottom of the birth dearth. First flight of the DC3 which was the first successful commercial passenger airplane. Many are still flying.

  15. Munchin

    Happy belated Bday Kevin from another '58er (July in my case...) . But we share the 19th nonetheless, I married my sweetheart 33 years ago on that date. Amateur picture taker (I could never call myself a photographer - it denotes skill that you have...). Love the blog - been a lurker for decades. Here's to many more blog posts and photos of cats, stars etc...

  16. Joseph Harbin

    Nonagenarian A.A. Stagg was in his final season coaching college football in 1958, retiring at age 96, six years before he died. The Time story on "Famed Elders" featured a note on Herbert Hoover, who was enjoying the longest to-date post-presidency after passing John Adams earlier in the year.

    But one who can justly claim that no man was ever under heavier or more cruel stress and survived it in good mental and physical health is Herbert Hoover, 84. One of only five U.S. Presidents to have reached fourscore, and the first in 100 years.... Herbert Hoover has long since dropped the daily gym exercises that won him fame as head of the “medicine-ball Cabinet.” Still, his energy seems almost unlimited. He rises early, usually around 6:30, is at his desk in his Waldorf-Astoria office by 9:30 a.m., directing a platoon of secretaries and research assistants, writing manuscripts (most notably and recently, The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson) in longhand. Though he naps for an hour or two after lunch, Hoover is far from having slowed his overall pace: he works seven days a week. Almost every night he has guests for dinner, which is preceded by two martinis (the only time he drinks), and he follows the meal with canasta, at which he is a whiz.

    Hoover lived several more years, dying on October 20, 1964, at age 90, the same day that a future president was born, our first woman president. All on the same day Kevin was blowing out six candles on his birthday cake.

    HBD to Kevin, Kamala, and all who celebrate.

      1. Joseph Harbin

        All presidents from Hoover to Reagan were born before Kennedy was born and died after Kennedy died, with two exceptions. One is FDR. The other is Carter, born seven years after Kennedy and still kicking. If you were born on Carter's last day in office, you'd be older than Kennedy was on his first day in office. (43 years, 274 days vs. 43 years, 236 days, as of 10/20/2024.)

  19. keefinmqt

    Happy birthday! (Have you beat by 5 years!) Back when libraries still retained bound periodicals, it was lots of fun to go back through old Life and Time magazines and see how society has evolved sin mid-twentieth century.

  20. bharshaw

    Happy birthday. May you live to be my age(I was in Vietnam on this day), or better still as old as I live to be.

    Can't resist commenting on the Times front page. Lots of different stories there, all I think written by single white male reporters. Today's paper has many fewer stories, much less from the officeholders and more on society, and almost all are a team of two or more reporters.

  22. Winslow2

    Happy birthday!! You keep getting better with age. Exhibit A: Your post on why you believe Kamala will win. I needed that.

  23. QuakerInBasement

    There's a Cat Licking Your Birthday Cake
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IDWk183xE4

    It's your birthday today
    It's your birthday today
    There's a cat licking your birthday cake
    It's your birthday today
    It's your birthday today (today)
    Everybody say hooray (hooray)
    There's a cat licking your birthday cake
    It's your birthday today (yay)
    He can't read, so he does not know
    That the cake is not for him (no)
    It might be his birthday, too
    But the chance of that is slim
    It's your birthday today (today)
    It's your birthday today (hooray)
    There's a cat licking your birthday cake
    It's your birthday today

  25. grishaxxx

    Just as you were entering this our world, I was starting my first year in the College at UChicago (then plain old UofC). Your world, on this anniversary, suddenly expanded with new heat & light, and mine did, too. Countless wonders ahead of us. New knowledge & skills. new friends and teachers and mentors - and they keep coming, and are never forgotten.
    I'll be 76 next Sunday, and the older I get the more grateful for my life. Been reading you for a long time now. I want you to achieve full Geezerhood. We need you, in your wisdom and your kitties (& Marian's art). And the Charts, of course. Keep it up, man... 🎂👍💪❤🤠

  26. johngustafson3

    Happy Birthday Libra Kevin. You seek justice just like our next president whose birthday follows yours by one day. Appreciate your strength.

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