It had never hit me before, but I am really getting old

Jim Fall

I guess the old saying about being only as old as you feel has something to it.

And then again, maybe it doesn’t.

I have always pretty well prided myself in at least having a “young” outlook on most things — just don’t get me started on reality television, or the younger among us who seem to constantly have one kind or another of electronic device in their hands, or their ears.

I still think spending a good part of my working life around young, and then younger, and younger, people at least helped me to keep a youthful outlook.

Beginning today, however, and continuing through the coming week, the reality of fact is settling in around me.

My cousin, George Edward Falls — yes, he of the side of the family with the “s” on their name — is celebrating a birthday today.

And in exactly a week, my wife, Jan, would have celebrated that same milestone of a birthday. And if her reactions to a couple of previous “big” birthdays were taken into consideration, perhaps it is just as well she is not with us to celebrate this one

Both she and George were born before I was — and believe me, I never let either of them forget that.

George’s wife, Jackie, has orchestrated a somewhat elaborate scheme to commemorate this one for him, and as I was preparing my contribution to the “memory box” she is putting together, it hit me.

It didn’t completely stop me in my tracks, but it did make something of an impression.

As Abraham Lincoln said in beginning one of his more popular speeches, “Four score and …,” well, we can stop right there.

As of today for George, it is “four score – and no more — yet,” but I expect there are many more in store for him as he has the same attitude as I do about growing older.

It wasn’t long ago, around Father’s Day, as I remember, that I tried to explain why I am “Fall” and my dad’s brother’s family became “Falls.”

There is the real story, and then there is what George and I used to tell folks while he lived with us from the time he was in fourth grade until we went to high school so my dad could help treat what was a rather serious case of asthma.

We would tell friends who wondered that I was “Fall, because I was an only child,” and George was “Falls, because he had a brother and a sister.”

We thought that to be extremely clever at the time, and come to think of it, it still kinda makes sense.

When we were in grade school, we became more like brothers than cousins, and that has carried over until today.

He graduated from high school in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and went on to Ole Miss. I finished high school at Castle Heights Military Academy in Lebanon, Tennessee, and matriculated at the University of Missouri.

We both started out in newspapers — George selling ads and me, writing stories.

He has continued to sell — Holiday Inn franchises around the world, and now some of the finest food available at his restaurant in Memphis.

He plays tennis, undoubtedly better than I play golf, and we are both compulsive baseball fans.

He was the best man in our wedding, and later played a significant role in raising Son Tim while Tim attended Memphis State and worked in George’s restaurant.

Although he’s never made it to Maryville, he made it to Helena and back twice and we talk frequently, usually about some Ole Miss, or Missouri, has done, or not done, in athletics.

This is a pretty selfish way to wish my cousin Happy Birthday, but I would be surprised if most of you reading this don’t have the same sort of relationship with at least one special relative.

So, if he happens to read this online, “Happy Birthday, Lightnin’, and many, many more.”

I can’t believe you’re — we’re — 80 years old …

… or that you don’t know to spell your last name.