It's math, isn't it?

So I'm reading a story about Keith Richards, the miraculous survivor, in The New Yorker. Comments are made concerning aging rock stars (these guys are pushing 70) and their paunchy aging fans. Ok mea culpa. I look a lot more like that elephant that Mick rode onto the stage in Memphis than I used to. And yes Keith that did happen, despite your interview averring that the elephant idea had been abandoned. I was there. It wasn't abandoned.

Anyway, back to the point. While talking about aging fans, the writer goes on to say that all the fans "donned apres-office relaxed-size jeans, PAID THE SITTER, parked the mini-van in the lot, and . . . shimmy . . ." Excuse me? Pay the sitter? My baby is 22 years old. Even given that the last tour was 2007, he was still 19. Never mind the egregious verb shift between past and present committed by the writer. Can you not do math?

I am at the lower age range of original Beatles/Stones fans. I was 9 years old when the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan. That means lots of fans have children even older than mine. Someone 19 then could have a youngest child who is 35 now.

Getting older mostly sucks. Just so you know. But a perk of aging and your children aging, which delighted me for years, was leaving the children without having to get a sitter. Just intending to walk out the door without planning two weeks in advance made me so happy. And kids get to be teen agers very quickly. The "middle-aged" fans all at least have children old enough to stay home alone, even taking into account all the oops babies. And delayed pregnancies. By and large middle-aged people don't have 5 year olds.

And I won't belabor it too much longer, but sharpen your math skills when you depict grandparents too. It is possible to become a grandparent at 36 (18+18) or less I suppose. Most people are not the older couple in the Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving picture when they become grandparents. They are mostly in their 40s or early 50s. And able to dance in the kitchen with their granddaughters.

And just so you know, Woodstock was 41 years ago. Do the math.