Over the Fence: Growing old with Mick

Here’s a recent headline from the news: “Mick Jagger, front man for the Rolling Stones, turns 80.” Wait — what? That can’t be right, can it? Yes, it can. It most shockingly, alarmingly and astoundingly can.

If I mention that I’m growing old with Mick, some of you who follow my newsletter may think I'm referring to my cat “Mick Jagger.” He co-writes my letter, Cat-tankerous Literary News, and is full of information (along with other things too dastardly to mention.)

Nonetheless, however brilliant my cat is, he doesn’t hold a candle to the Mick Jagger of my youth, the co-founder and front man of The Rolling Stones rock band.

I thought about that fact a few weeks ago when the entire family traveled to Lumen Field in Seattle to see the Rolling Stones perform in concert. The tickets were a Christmas present from me. We had already imprinted the band’s legacy on my daughter and son, taking them with us to concerts from the time they were young. This time, the grandkids came along. Predictably, the Stones worked their magic, and now there exists a new, (third) generation of the family who I have no doubt will be lifelong fans. After we left the concert, the kids looked at me in wonder and said, “Our friends have never heard of the Rolling Stones, Gran!”

That’s a shame, because they are a part of the tapestry that has made blues and rock music so engaging and maybe even necessary for those of us who grew up in the sixties. Along with the Beatles, the Stones lit a musical match and started a fire under our generation that has never gone out.

This latest concert was the most impressive we have seen. At one point, Mick executed a full-out, fist-punching sprint to the end of a large, elongated stage. There were 55,000 of us in the arena who audibly gasped, and then held our collective breath and hoped he wouldn't keel over. But no — at the end of his sprint, he picked up the mic and started singing again — without even sounding out of breath!

So the old group of bad boys are all in great shape. During the two-hour performance, the band did not sit down. The concert itself was wonderful and the staging was the best we’d ever seen. This was our sixth time attending a Stones concert, and it makes me sad that it could be the last.

A saving grace is that music can transcend time, and it does. If I’m driving around listening to an oldies station, and hear “Satisfaction,” the Stones' signature song, I’m instantly transported to my alma mater, The Ohio State University of the 1960s, where I first encountered the music of Mick and the gang. Their one-of-a-kind, soul-jarring sound coursed through my blood and spoke to me in a way that no music ever had. It still does, almost 60 years later.