This past week, I had my age estimated by a technique which I believe is called carbon dating. You know, this is what they use to date prehistoric phenomenon like ancient rocks and long lost archeological sites. My fears were confirmed. I turned 82 this past week.

That sounds old. That is old. You must accept that you are ancient when you realize that there are trees in the petrified forest younger than you. I can remember way back in the last century when I thought ahead to the fact that I would be 56 when we transitioned into the 21st century. Gee, I recall musing, I wonder if I can last until then … to what struck me as an extremely advanced age. It seemed very doubtful at the time. Now I wonder if I will still be around when AI renders the human race obsolete and unnecessary. That milestone cannot be very far off.

Alas, birthdays for me have ceased to be celebratory milestones. They have now become moments of somber reflection.

In the pic above, I am with my doting parents. It is 1944. Perhaps the term doting is just a bit of an exaggeration. I think they took one look at me and panicked. Won’t make that mistake again, they undoubtedly vowed. Thus, I remained an only child.

Then, again, perhaps it was not my fault. They might have been too busy arguing for the remainder of their sad union to bring another mistake into the world. Thank heavens for little miracles.

And here I am as a young tyke. In case you are confused, I am the one whose tongue is not hanging out. The other is our pet dog Fritz, a miniature German Shepherd. There was a debate in the neighborhood about which of us was the greater menace to society. While Fritz was loyal to the family, he did have a tendency to bite people at random. He was put on probation by the city several times for violating the aformentioned rule … don’t bite innocent citizens. The vote was close but, while I was deemed totally obnoxious, I never bit anyone. Well, I was never caught doing it.

One of my favorite pastimes was to convince neighborhood kids to raise an arm as if they were about to strike me. Fritz, ever the loyal Rottweiler (he should have been at least), would leap at my fake attacker with snarling ferocity. The poor kid would take off wailing for his life as I doubled over in laughter. As you might imagine, I didn’t have many friends.

I think I recently used the above Pic in another blog reminiscing about my misspent life. Oh well, this is what you kids have to look forward to when you reach my advanced age … repeating stories endlessly that no one wants to hear.

I am the nerd on the right, standing next to Maribeth. She was my only high school sweetheart. My best guess is that all the young women got together to decide who would get stuck with me. She lost. An unfortunate outcome for her, really, since she had a lot going for her. She was bright, witty, and clearly headed for success in life (eventually getting a Ph.D.). I am sure she told her own children about the ordeal she had to endure in high school with this total loser.

Above is my college graduation pic. Thank God I got rid of the crewcut. Admittedly, college was transformational for me. That experience turned me from an average ethnic, working class, Catholic kid living within a confining cultural cocoon into someone who questioned everything and who began thinking for himself. Well, at least I gave myself some credit for being self-reflective.

It wasn’t always easy. Ridding oneself of encrusted beliefs can be painful. Nevertheless, I am so grateful to my Alma Mater, Clark University. I entered college embracing all the conventional tropes about America. Soon, however, I could distinguish fact from delusional fancy, or so I convinced myself. I came to accept that there were things about America for which to be proud but much that yet needed to be corrected. Among other disturbing things, we were one of the few advanced nations to continue the practice of legal apartheid, that blithely permitted high levels of child poverty amidst plenty,  and that tended to wage unnecessary wars costing millions of casualties. I tilted my life trajectory to confront a bit of that tarnished national record.

Good friends once told me that Clark University is one of those few institutions that took average students and could turn them into thinkers who might thrive in R-1 universities (our premier research schools). That was me. Through high school, I was average at best. In my mind, at least, I demonstrated little to no promise. Clark changed all that. It still took many years, but I slowly realized that I was not nearly as dumb as I looked.

Ken Burns, our iconic producer of excellent PBS documentaries, talked glowingly about Hampshire College (which just closed) in Western Mass. He considered it as being ‘transformational’ for him.

My generation attended college when higher education was yet an exciting adventure, and not merely ‘transactional’ in character. I know I gave little thought to what kind of job I might get. I was there to be inspired, to struggle with ideas that might help me develop a coherent and compelling perspective on life. Decades later, while teaching at the University of Wisconsin, I realized how blessed I was. The kids seated before me seemed more stressed and even desperate. Today, I cannot imagine what undergrads see before them.

I cannot move on without a quick note on Lee, my intense college sweetheart. She was my first real love. It was just like those sappy Hallmark movies where I was smitten instantly when seeing her across a crowded room. Totally lacking any self worth, it took me forever to make a move. And let me state without fear of contradiction, my patented move sucked big time. Just ask all the gals that shot me down.

While contrary to the consensus at the time, I apparently was capable of being charming, witty, and insightful. Still, I could not imagine why any reasonable female might be attracted to me. I was hardly a catch with no fortune, few prospects, and what I thought were average looks. Besides, I had been damaged by my folks’ tempestuous and unhappy marriage. Who would want to repeat that fiasco.

So, upon graduation, I ran off to India for two years in the Peace Corps. It proved somewhat difficult to keep a romantic flame alive across 12,000 miles absent satellite communications. And Lee was no dummy, other than agreeing to date me in the first place. She was at least smart enough to snag a sane guy, a post-doc she met while working at Harvard.

Via Facebook, we did reconnect some four plus decades later in life. Through this cyberspace connection, we were able to re-examine and laugh about the ill-fated romance of our youth. It turned out that she had kept all my letters from India, a treasure of real time insight to my thinking during that period. What a blessing!

One paragraph from an email she sent stunned me. Commenting on how she viewed me back in college, she wrote: ‘You were kind, sensitive, super smart, passionate about causes, and the best kisser ever. I was awed by you.’

Hmm, at the time I thought she had dismissed me as a loser! I had a hell-of-a time shaking that negative self-perception. In truth, we did love one another but were too damaged to acknowledge it at the time.

Like my time at Clark University, two years in rural India also was transformational. I met with my group India-44 several times beginning in 2009, 40 years after our return from the sub- continent. We all had similar reflections on our experience. India tested us to the extreme. The heat, disease, cultural disconnects, loneliness, and being tasked to perform in areas beyond our meager capacities proved to be extremely harsh challenges.

At the same time, all of the gathered ex-volunteers agreed that they emerged from this personal test as stronger individuals. Each of us came away with a better sense of who we were and a deeper appreciation of the power of culture to shape our lives.

There must be something special about the PC experience. The life trajectories of members of India-44 turned out to be exceptional. Many earned advanced degrees from our best universities before going on to contribute much to the betterment of society. Hell, even I managed to stay out of jail.

Above is me, and my long- suffering spouse, taken about 1979. By this time, I had left my State of Wisconsin position to work at the University of Wisconsin while pursuing my doctorate. Mary Rider, the woman who inexplicably agreed to marry me, had rocketed up the state bureaucracy to become the Deputy Director of the Wisconsin State Court System. She rose to that high position even before returning to graduate with honors from the UW School of Law

Even after finally earning my terminal degree (which I’m positive they simply gave me to kick me out of the program) I remained at Wisconsin. I realized that life in the academy, as stressful and demanding as it was, proved preferable to actually working for a living.

I spent most of my time at the Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP), a nationally recognized think tank which I helped run for many years. I also taught policy courses in the School of Social Work and consulted with many local jurisdictions while spending a great deal of time in Washington, our nation’s capital, as I labored on a host of domestic policy issues.

In truth, I was never an academic scholar but I was damn clever. I loved working out of the academy while never becoming a formal member of the academy, which I viewed as overly provincial and restrictive. Real scholarship demanded that you drill down into the minutiae of very specific questions. I, on the other hand, had the attention span of a fruit fly. I was all over the place as a self-described policy- wonk

When I partially retired earlier this century, I described my wonderful career as follows: ‘I flew around the country to work with the smartest people on some of society’s most difficult domestic challenges. And they actually paid me to do this. Wow, what a scam … though it was not a career for the faint of heart. Welfare reform, in particular, was seen as the Mideast of Domestic policy making!’

Above are Mary and I as we segued into what were supposed to be our golden years. Unfortunately, she was beginning a long descent into dementia (Alzheimers). They call this the long good-bye for a reason. You lose your loved one bit by bit.

Even here, there was a positive side. As our lives became smaller, I was able to pursue a long deffered dream … that of being a creative writer. My English prof at Clark once told me that the secret to being a good writer was to tell a good story. Though I was celebrated among my academic peers as an exceptional communicator, I always wondered if I could tell a good story.

I used this more or less sheltered period in later life to answer this life- long query … could I really tell a good story. Over about 10 to 12 years, I pumped out a bunch of books … memoirs, academic tomes, and fictional works. Based on the reviews and feedback I received, I got my answer. Yup, I could tell a good story.

But life moves on. Mary Rider, who was part of my life for some five decades, passed in 2022. About three months later, a former State attorney (Sherwood Zink) with whom I worked on state child support reforms, also passed away. My spouse and I had been friends with Sherwood and his spouse Mary for over three decades.

It seemed natural that Mary Zink and I would gravitate toward one another, mostly simply going to concerts and plays for quite a long time. Eventually that simple connection evolved into something deeper, including road trips and international travel. The pic above was taken in Chile after sailing around the southern tip of South America.

Looking back, I have been damn lucky. As a kid I felt average at best. Even as an adult who achieved some professional recognition, I always thought I was the imposter in the room. While I got to be a player in all the big poverty and welfare issues when such were front burner items, I could never quite understand why my voice seemed to matter so. I believed others were far more talented than I ever was. It had proved most difficult to shed that working class sense of inferiority. Yet, I kept being invited back into those rooms to be a policy player. Thank God for that.

In the end, my inbred self- loathing never seemed to matter. I had a great time in life. I must have since I wrote three memoirs (see below).

These works have proven to me something in which I fervently believe. Everyone, no matter how ordinary they seemingly appear, has a story to tell. Even a schlepp like myself can carry on for three volumes about my pathetic life, books which readers appeared to like. My first memoir (A Clueless Rebel) had a 4.9 out of 5.0 star rating.

Just think what you could do with a life that was actually exciting.