Is Ma Kent Old?, by Martha Thomases
As I sit here, it’s Monday. TCM is kindly running The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca so I have snappy dialogue in the background. The sun is bright, my blueberry bushes are full of flowers, and it looks like it’s going to be a beautiful week.
However, as you read this, a momentous event is occurring. It’s my birthday. I’m 55 years old. When I was a child (until I was 31, at least), I thought 55 was old. People I knew who were that age had grown children, and were either biding their time towards retirement or starting out on new careers. How could they do it, I wondered, when so much of their life was over?
It’s a good question. How can I do it? I don’t feel like I’m 55 (see Column #47). More to the point, I’m not sure what 55 feels like. I don’t know what it looks like. Do you see women of a certain age in the media? Yes, you do. However, most of them have had so much cosmetic surgery, or Botox, or hair-dye, or liposuction, that there’s no way to see what they really look like.
In fact, I don’t have the personal medical records of famous women my age. It may be that Katie Couric or Diane Sawyer, for example, just naturally looks the same as they did 15 years ago, with no gray hair and full cheeks, while Tom Brokaw gets white hair and laugh lines. For women, wrinkles prevent one from delivering the news. Goldie Hawn is older than I am, but you can’t tell by looking at her recent photos.
One of my favorite parts of the film Good Night and Good Luck, aside from the fact that it’s about what of the most inspiring and heroic characters in American history, is the way men and women are presented as having wrinkles, lumps and meaningful lives, all at the same time. They smoke, they drink, they work too hard at sedentary jobs, and their faces show the wear and tear. Take a look at AMC’s Mad Men and you’ll see a much more conventionally photogenic portrayal of the same era.
Comics are worse. Which major characters are older than 50? Perry White? Jonah Jameson? Both are curmudgeons who may or may not have hearts of gold. Jonathan and Martha Kent don’t have given ages, but we can assume they are at least as old as other parents of teenagers (mid-40s?) but have gray hair, thick bodies and no apparent social lives outside of their son. Even the refurbished, modern, post-Byrne Martha Kent spends an inordinate amount of time baking pies.
I’m sure that every generation finds its own adventure in the journey through life. As a baby-boomer I’m used to being the center of attention, the market that advertisers want to attract, the ones to define cool. We don’t go gently into the good night of adult diapers and denture crème. So maybe it’s not surprising that so many of us still insist we’re part of the young, desirable demographic.
Personally, I think it’s embarrassing. This is my body. The lines and scars and lumps are souvenirs of the life I’ve led – the lovers, the races, the kid and the sitting. And this body is ready to eat cake.
Martha Thomases, Media dess of the ComicMix galaxy, thinks it’s really great that Reed Expo invited so many of her friends in for the weekend.
On you, dear, 55 is the new 35!
Happy Birthday, youngster. Oh, to be a spry 55 again. Hope you have a great day and many more terrific years to come.
Happy Birthday Martha. Have some cake for me.
"And this body is ready to eat cake."The best closing line of the week. Happy Birthday. Like Tony, I only wish…
I think we should ALL eat cake! Happy birthday, Martha!
Happy B'day, Martha. I read your column every Saturday morning and always take a laugh or something to think about from it. I just turned 55 in February and mentally feel no different from when I was a mere lad in my 20's (although my girlfriend tells me I've mellowed considerably). I still haven't joined the AARP, and haven't taken advantage of the senior discounts now available to me. These are things I can't bring myself to do yet, but if the economy keeps tanking, it only a matter of time before I do. Thanks again for the weekly pick-me-ups your columns provide.
A couple of years ago when the grandmother in the "Stone Soup" strip came into some money and was planning to take a long-dreamt-of trip to Africa, everyone was worrying that she was too old (if not in those exact words). When she apparently had something of a fling over there, they were even more tweaked.And it was at that point that i (who had been thinking of her as "old") realised that she was probably supposed to be right about my own age.And that if i had the money, i'd be off in a flash and would think nothing of all about making an extended stay in parts foreign (though not Africa).Since then i have gotten a couple years older.She hasn't, which i consider grossly unfair.
You're 55? Martha, you CHILD!Happy birthday and love from 63-year-old Howard the geezerP.S. Do I have to wait until 2020, by which you just may ACTUALLY begin feeling "old," for you to bake me a pie like Ma Kent makes?
Happy Birthday, Martha! Old is a Sate of Mind – but I have no idea what the country is.
Hey girl!Despite the vast difference in our ages with me barely 28, I hope to have as much sense and sensibility when I get to be 55…}';>)It is simply amazing to me that we've known each other for four decades. You're my oldest and best friend. We've been through the best and worst and everything else in this life and I'm just so proud and happy for you. I wish you the best and loveliest of days, today and always.pennie
Hey, something doesn't add up here. At 28, you aren't even old enough to have known Martha in 4 DIFFERENT decades.While I, at 27, have been reading comics in SIX different decades.Happy Birthday, Martha!
Happy birthday, you Survivor you! You continue to be an inspiration to me, a mere 50-year-old.My favorite older female comics characters are probably Joan Garrick (never used enough) and "Ma" Hunkle (starting to be used as much a she should be).
Hey, baby!We just got back and I had to vote.NOW GO HOME!Again, Happy HKissnoise,Rickirthday!