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  YOU'VE TURNED 55
  by Steve Blum

You've turned fifty-five:
Will your grin turn to gloom
When your spring comes unsprung
While you lose your va-voom?

Will yesteryear's touchdowns
Become today's fumbles?
Home runs shrink to singles?
And sprints become stumbles?

You're Yalies: not knowing
Won't make you a dunce.
But one thing's for certain:
You're only old once.

I don't care if alums
Say old age is a bore:
I've been there (and back!)
So I know what's in store.

"You're Only Old Once"
Was my forty fifth book
(My very last one,
If you're tempted to look).

I wrote it myself
(For my birthday, not yours),
But my forty-fifth book
Had no magical cures.

I created a place
That's called Fotta-fa-Zee,
Where people feel fine
At one hundred and three.

With Fotta-fa-Zee-an
Good food and clean air,
Folks never see doctors
Or need Medicare.

But you, you Old Blues,
You don't live anywhere
Near Fotta-fa-Zee,
And there's gray in your hair.

And pains in your toes
And your knees and your brains,
And your feet even ache
At the first sign of rain.

Old Blues shouldn't mope,
Aches and pains aren't a crime:
Fifty-five years
Are a mighty long time!

So now what, Old Blues,
When you finally arrive
At the no-so-fun thought
That you ARE fifty-five?

Retire from sports
To play tiddly winks,
'Till your cardiovascular
Stamina stinks?

Or should you decide
To treat age as a trial:
Dye your hair and lift weights,
And go into denial?

No, here's what I think,
Class of '74
(It doesn't require
A thesis, or more).

Fifty-five's not a shame;
It's no great defeat.
Don't give up on sports
And sit down on your seat.

You've slowed down, Old Blues,
But no one is a slouch;
Leave tiddly winks
To some other old grouch.

Stick with your golfing,
Reunions and squash.
Lesser strength, greater smarts:
We'll call it a wash.

You may be a member
Of AARP,
But you don't need to go
To Fotta-fa-Zee.

Fifty-five hardly counts
As a knock on Death's Door:
Your fellow alums
Hope you stay forty more!

Your classmates? They care,
And they feel like you, too,
Because (in most cases)
They're getting old, too!

Yes, you're only old once:
But be glad you're alive.
I'll write your whole class
When you turn sixty-five!



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Reunification event with Vietnam veterans at Yale this summer. Contact Harvey Harrison '73 (818-597-8335)
 

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WHO'S IN THE LATEST
CLASS NOTES?

Holly Lyman Antonelli
Marilyn Bailey
Donna Carter
Gilbert Casellas
Daniel Delano
Jeff Johnson
Phil Piro
Brian Kelly
Phyllis Orrick
Kevin Rogan
Stu Rohrer
Charlie Thorne
Scott and Linden Wise
Frumie Selchen


PERSONAL PAGE UPDATES:
Phyllis Orrick
David Mielke
Alan Strasser
Greg Aube
Anne Riney
Maija Freimanis NEW PHOTO!
Peter St. Clair NEW PHOTO!
Howard Palmer
Deborah Dinkelacker
Ron Claiborne
Scott Glascock
George Powers NEW PHOTO!
Tricia Bell NEW PHOTO!
Jeff Johnson NEW PHOTO!
Irem Erez NEW PHOTO!
Ralph Evans NEW PHOTO!
Vic Corcoran NEW PHOTO!
Jim Blalock NEW PHOTO!
Edith B. Terry NEW PHOTO!
Harry Zeitlin NEW PHOTO!
Jeff Eskin NEW PHOTO!
Bill Wilkins NEW PHOTO!
Rick Fehling NEW PHOTO!

Picture This: Our site now holds more than 350 classmate photos. Take a look around!

Archives    30th Reunion    25th Reunion


'74 skippers Wes and Shary
at The Game, 2007.

CAMPUS UPDATES

Death of The Doodle?

Send your memories of the Yankee Doodle to Wes Bray.
 
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to our 35th Reunion.




WATCH: "The Wheels on the Bus": illustration by Paul Zelinsky, music by the Bacon brothers [QuickTime]

LISTEN: Ralph Evans' composition String Quartet #1 with the Fine Arts Quartet [mp3].

LISTEN: Brian Wilson sings Sandy Boynton's Speed Turtle from "Blue Moo" [mp3].

LISTEN: On NPR's All Things Considered, Naomi Lewin searches for her great-uncle's WWI grave.

WATCH: Paul Krugman visits The Colbert Report [video].

LISTEN: Gary Lucas "Wild Rumpus" single [iTunes]

See all Classmate Appearances & Publications

Read
Molly Rothenberg's letter from New Orleans.


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