Maturity milestone

There it was at our staff meeting: the first birthday cake with the magic number 65 on top. They went with the big number candles, so they wouldn’t have to bother lighting dozens of separate ones. Probably a smart move.

Sixty-five. That was once time to retire. And indeed, when I was younger I expected that in my mid-60s, I would join the “over the hill gang.” After all, when I consider the staff here at the Heritage Foundation, I note almost all 200 are younger than I. Even a couple members of our board are years my junior. Yet there’s plenty of work to do, and I’m not ready to hang it all up. When I wrote about turning 50 —which I did just yesterday, it seems — I noted, “Fifty really does have a different feel to it than 49.” Tom Brokaw put it well when he turned 50: “At this age, mistakes, however daring, are not easily excused. Achievement is not a cause of praise; it is expected.”

Sixty-five is an age and, too often, an end. At 65. Jack Welch and so many others have followed company policy and hit the golf course — permanently.

If they tire of golf, like my Dad did, they take up something else. In Dad’s case, oil painting. One time I called home, and my mother answered the phone. After chatting a bit, I asked where Dad was. She responded, “Oh, he’s out on the porch painting.” Me: “Is he getting any better?” Mom: “No, but he’s getting faster.” Now we have his masterpieces all over the grandkids’ room at the beach house. They’re too young to notice these aren’t really world-class, priceless Impressionist originals.

But turning 65 shouldn’t be a time to lament. It’s a time to reflect and to make a difference. I’m lucky to still be able to make an impact.

It’s also a good time to look at the balance sheet.

On the asset side:

• A great wife and companion for the last 37 years.

• Two exasperating, challenging and loving children with great spouses and three wonderful grandchildren. All I can say about Betsy, William and Sara is the usual grandparent lament: “I wish we’d had them first.”

• Terrific friends from around the block, around the Beltway, around the country and even around the world.

• Good health for us all. In fact, my best 65th birthday present was my buddy at Sloan-Kettering telling me: “The picture on the computer screen’s clear, and I never want you to darken my door again.”

• The opportunity to work with a team of first-class people to conceive, build and make permanent an institution in Washington that’s really making a difference for the policies we believe in for all our fellow citizens.

• The chance to participate in the changes that have occurred throughout the world; the realization government is more often a part of the problem than a part of the solution; and to observe the fall of communism as an ideology and as a governing force.

• A niche in the scheme of things that God has put in place.

On the liability side:

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