Age: The Truth Is Out There in Myriad Ways

By John Addyman  |  john.addyman@yahoo.com

 

My youngest daughter has a favorite saying for my birthday.

On that occasion, she smiles and sweetly tells me, “Dad, you’re older than dirt.”

When you get to be my age — and some of you will — it helps to have some descriptive retort for those who are trying to figure out just how old you really are.

I first ran into this about three years ago when I unexpectedly returned to teaching math and science in middle school. It was clear the first time I met with the faculty and staff that I was older than everybody by a good 20 years.

The last time I’d been in a public-school classroom was 1979.

My kids at this new school, being their adorable little selves, wanted to know just hold old I was. They didn’t want a quantitative number about my age, they wanted a qualitative answer.

So, when one of the kids in my homeroom, the boy with the longest hair, was dared by his buddies to ask the question, I had an answer ready for him.

“How old are you?” he asked at 7:45 one morning. Other kids were watching to see what I would do. Some were ready to write the number down.

I could have answered, inspired by my own daughter, that I was so old that I had been standing there when someone put the first fistful of stuff together and called it “dirt.”

But I didn’t.

“I’m 106,” I told him.

He accepted it and walked away. This was fifth grade.

But being a resourceful lad and because his grandmother was a volunteer at the school, he came back the next day and first thing, inquired again: “How old are you? I mean, how old are you really?”

“I’m 106.”

His face got all screwed up while he stood there, looking at me.

“Really…how old?”

“106. Really. Don’t I look it?”

He pivoted and went back to the little gathering of his classmates. They were busy trying to decide if I really looked 106…or did I look older than that? They’d talk and sneak a peek at me again and again. Finally, the conference broke up.

The next day here comes the same kid, who is by now destined to be a lawyer.

“I know how old you are,” he told me confidently. Chin stuck out. Arms crossed on his chest. Foot tapping for emphasis.

“Of course you do,” I told him earnestly. “I’ve said it several times: I’m 106. Didn’t you hear me? Did you think I forget day-by-day? I am old…”

He then proceeded to insist that he really knew how old I was because he and his grandmother — who was standing out in the hallway listening — had looked me up on the internet. Slam dunk.

And now he proudly asked me, with wisdom and proof in hand, “How old are you?”

“I was a waiter at the last supper,” I told him.

“What?” he asked.

“The birthstone on my college ring is lava,” I said.

“I don’t understand…”

“My Social Security number is 1.”

He looked confused and distressed and glanced back out into the hall. Grandmother was signaling him to push harder for the answer.

I helped him clear his head: “When Benjamin Franklin was about to discover electricity in a thunderstorm, I loaned him the key to my apartment.”

Well, maybe not that clear.

“Do you know what’s different between this school and the one I attended in fifth grade?” I asked him.

He shook his head.

“We didn’t have a history class. It wasn’t invented yet.”

His mouth was open.

“Look,” I told him. “You and your grandmother made a mistake. You looked me up with a birthday in 1944; my real birthday is in 1917. You’ll find me there.”

He turned around, said something to his classmates and went out in the hall to confer with grandmother.

The next day, we were ready for the final questioning. I told him it reminded me of my experience in the Spanish Inquisition.

My student had spent time with grandmother on the internet and had indeed found John Addyman, born in 1917. He had told just about everybody. Some of my other students were satisfied, some had reported this to their parents who wisely said, “He can’t be 106.”

“Do you know how old I am?” I asked my young student for the last time.

“Yes, I do,” he said. His voice had a disappointed tone to it. He was sure I was 78 after his original research, but I was a science teacher and taught that we must examine what we see to find the truth. Now he felt he’d seen proof that I really was so old carbon wouldn’t date me.

The lesson here is that the internet tells the truth in myriad ways.

Yes, John Addyman was born in 1917.

He was my dad.