On Becoming Eighty
By Clay Hipp
Time and country, music and memory
I was born on July 3, 1946.
It still surprises me that I am writing these lines after all this time. I am also aware of the privilege that is mine to have experienced such momentous decades.
Some have said that if one was born before the middle of the twentieth century and lived to be my age, one has witnessed the fastest rate of change in human history. That may be true. What is also true is that unthinking folk miss so much by ignoring that heritage, and thereby forgetting that we all stand on somebody’s shoulders.
A wise songwriter once put it this way: we are often “born to ignorance and privilege.”
Born to ignorance and privilege.
Is that not a haunting phrase?
Do we truly appreciate what it has meant to be born an American? Not merely in the flag-waving sense, or in the easy language of celebration, but in the deeper and more difficult sense: to inherit a country of astonishing possibility and terrible contradiction, of promise and blindness, of gifts we did not earn and responsibilities we have not always understood.
Years ago, I made up a little joke story about my birth in a very small mill town in upstate South Carolina. I have told it numerous times. Perhaps you have already been a victim. If so, feel free to leave the room for a few minutes while the unfortunate ones among you graciously humor me.
The story goes this way.
We had dial phones and only four numbers. Ours was, I think, 4642. They were called “party lines,” not because there was anything festive about them, but because several households shared the same line. Less than a block from our house, a Southern Bell employee—almost always a woman—sat in front of a large board filled with plugs. It was her job to know the town so well that she could connect callers almost instantaneously.
I tell you this to say that although we were barely 2,000 strong, word still traveled slowly, mostly by mouth. The town newspaper came out only once a week.
Consequently, by the time everyone heard about this obviously special new baby, it was already the next day. Finally, people took to the streets. They held a parade, prepared sumptuous barbecue feasts, listened to brass bands, and set off fireworks.
And you thought the Fourth of July was about independence from the odious King George.
That was merely an afterthought, because my birthday had been so much fun.
Seriously though, it is an interesting thing to realize that when I was born, the country was “only” 170 years old. Even more astounding is the fact that I have now lived through nearly another third of its life.
Really?
What might I do with this new and continuing reality?
At this significant moment, I am still coming to grips with uncertainty—not just about who I will be, but about what my world, my very country, will be for my children and grandchildren, our world and theirs.
There are no answers, so right now I would rather explore the questions.
As you know, my musical artists are helping me identify and ponder the most pressing things. But perhaps even more importantly, I am thinking more deeply about the things I choose to share with you. It is becoming clearer that if I want to find a voice with which to speak, I need to think more and more about what I can say that is worthy of whatever trust you have placed in me.
I also learned very recently that the music I love, whatever the genre, needs to be taken more seriously. That means I must learn to pay it more attention, and listen to it more caringly.
Joanie and I sat with someone who is becoming a special friend to her. She has just turned ninety and was once a classically trained artist of some renown. After trying for some time to make it so, we sat with her for the better part of three hours and listened to—and watched—two Beethoven symphonies.
We sat in complete silence, each in our own little seat, enraptured by Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic. Almost every minute, his eyes were closed in deep concentration, as though he were not merely directing the music but receiving it. More than one hundred musicians were creating something together, and yet the whole experience felt intimate.
I was almost totally speechless at the end. I think we all were.
And then came the joy of the Ode.
So as I look back, what stands out? Or, as someone asked me recently, what do you want to do with the next decade?
I thought hard for a few moments. I finally admitted that I had no grand expectations to fulfill. What I really wanted was simply “more of the same.”
A partner beyond anything I deserve, doing what I have wanted to do for a long time: writing about all the things that capture my curiosity and interest.
Traveling to places we can afford.
Spending as much time as possible in the rural parts of my environment.
Sitting on our private back porch in the early morning.
Give me a decade of that and I will be happy. Yet whatever portion I am granted, I will count myself grateful, knowing I have already received more than most.
Though if I'm permitted amendments: good health, a clear mind, and world peace would all be most welcome. And if the muses would finally kick in and inspire me to write the great American novel, that would be all right too. Come to think of it, I may have already made my own valiant attempt (a small regional publisher took six months to decide it fell just short of the mark).
You know what? I might just submit it to you, the finest jury of public opinion I could ask for.
Maybe a serialized version somewhere down the line?
Perhaps, if I screw my courage to the sticking place, we might just try that in the fall—call it a short course for community.
Hmmmmm.
As for my wish for you, one could do no better than a little more Beethoven. Begin, perhaps, with the Ninth Symphony. Find an online performance with the great Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic, and let yourself arrive at the “Ode to Joy” with full chorus and orchestra.
And literarily speaking, seriously consider Richard Powers’ Freddy and Fredericka. Truly a great American novel. It will not feel that way at first, but wait for it. You may find yourself seeing your own country from a totally different perspective.
That is to say, please begin to look after yourself better—physically, emotionally, and spiritually, whatever you take that to mean.
Visit your interior life.
You are the only one who truly knows who you are and what you still hope to become.
As for me, I will keep sitting on that back porch, still working on the one thing eighty years has taught me is possible. I was born to ignorance and privilege — we all are, in this country perhaps more than most. The privilege was never mine to earn. But the ignorance, I have slowly learned, has always been mine to lose.
I am not finished losing it. That may be the best birthday present of all: at eighty, there is still so much left to unlearn.
Thank you for humoring an old man on his birthday.