Raising the chin-up bar
Speaking of Cuba, endurance swimmer Diana Nyad has been much in the news over the last couple of days for successfully swimming across the 110-mile strait separating Cuba from Florida.
Obviously, that’s a considerable feat for anyone to pull off. That it was carried out by a 64-year-old makes it all the more noteworthy. Then again, Nyad’s generation, despite it’s oft-repeated mistrust of anyone over age 30 back in its younger days, has been aggressively redefining what constitutes “old age” as it rides into its sunset years. Certainly the stamina and energy demonstrated by the likes of Bruce Springsteen, who will join Nyad as a 64-year-old later this month, raises the chin-up bar for everyone else in that cohort.
In the Beatles’ song “When I’m Sixty Four,” they wondered if anyone would still need them or feed them when they reached that august age. Perhaps a better question for today’s 64-year-olds is if anyone can keep up with them.