When You're Young You're Different

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
of the editorial page staff
published by the StarTribune
July 21, 1956


   IN PONDERING my impending vacation, I have fallen to pondering vacations past, comparing former and present attitudes and viewing the gulf between the middle-age that is now and the youth that is done.
   Back in the salad days, my wife and I judged a vacation's merit by the distance traveled.  Far horizons pulled us.  We would head forth in a beaten-up fugitive from the automobile graveyard, with a baby in the back seat and money owed the grocer in my pants, our hearts carefree and our eyes on the far away hills.  I recall once being 100 miles from home on the return trip with a dime as my only negotiable asset.

   WE'LL BE driving little more than 250 miles from home in the vacation coming up--and I'd be happier if it were 50.  Beating the highways mile on endless mile no longer charms me.  The paramount wish is that the distance be short and that I arrive in reasonable health.
   This points to physical slippage, devotion to routine and hardening of arteries and attitudes.  It is surrender to time.  Far off places still lure me some, but I prefer to get there by public carrier, without looking at oncoming headlights or wondering if the road jockey approaching at 80 miles an hour will duck back into line or knock me into a statistic.

Chuck (elder son), a pal (?) and Carol (daughter)

   MY ELDER son would think no more of driving 250 miles than buzzing around the block.  I have known him with a couple of pals, to start out on an ambitious journey with bald-headed tires, a decrepit spare, five gallons of gas and no credit card-- and with barely enough money among the three to finance a round of hot dogs.  Whenever he got stalled, which was often, he would cuss his luck but not his deplorable preparations.
   For the modest junket just ahead I am girded for all conceivable exigencies.  The car is greased, oiled and gassed to the teeth and the tires are tough as a ward-heeler's conscience.  The credit card has been restored to respectability and the motor club alerted.  I will not say we are immune to trouble.  But should calamity befall it won't be because we've invited it, as youth is wont to do.

   YOUTH and age part company in other ways, too.  Kids just married, for instance, have the notion that easy payments are easy.  They will put themselves in installment hock for years without batting an eye, and then wonder why they're always broke.

   The old man is cagier, less inclined to spend it before he has it.  The 1950 bus may begin to rattle, groan and protest but he's reluctant to trade it in on a new job just to keep up with the Joneses.  He'll spend $50 for repairs and drive it another year.  To be less mired in debt he's willing to be less stylish.

   THE OLDSTER is not inclined to violent exercise.  My 7-year-old looks at me strangely whenever I refuse to race him upstairs when it's his bedtime.  When the fatigue of the day's occupation is not too heavy I'll accept his challenge, but these occasions are growing fewer.  It brings a pronounced pounding to the heart and often a cramp to the calf.
   Seven years ago I would play badminton with the kids in the back yard and give them quite a game.  Now the neighbors are doing it and it wearies me to watch them.

   I HEAR about young fathers going on overnight hikes or canoe trips with their young, deals involving portages, long hikes under full pack and nights with the stars overhead and the ground underneath.  I once was a child of nature myself, living in the mountains for three summers, where the only running water was in the river and the bed springs were pine boughs and you had to chop wood and eat smoke and otherwise do it yourself to survive.  My nearest approach to that way of life now is when I am dragooned into a hamburger fry in the back yard, a madness which seems to be catching on in spite of mosquitoes and inconvenience.

   YOUTH is a plunger and youth is impetuous.  He may not know how he'll raise the rent money but is sure he'll have it by the first of the month.  Youth wears the bright face of hope and of faith in tomorrow.  He rides the punches and plans big plans.
   Youth, though often half nuts, is our great national asset.  He fuels the engines of progress and commerce.  I am for him 100 percent.  Just don't ask me to keep up with him.

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