Signs You're Gettin' Old

Photo: Bon Jovi, from its Wikipedia page

These are ways that are a little more subtle than, let's say, your hair thinning, or you just plain losing your hair.  Neither of these are happening to me, of course.

--You hear yourself constantly comparing yourself, or your generation, with the younger, and you constantly begin such comparisons with, "I don't mean to sound like an old fuddy-duddy, but..."  And then you hear yourself sounding like an old fuddy-duddy.

--And you hear yourself using phrases like, "Fuddy-duddy."

--You take naps not because you want to, but because you have to.

--And such naps are unplanned.  You just suddenly wake up on the couch, and it's a few hours later.

--Friday nights are no longer nights you go out, but are just an extension of the workweek, just another night in which you're tired from the workday.

--If you're lucky, Saturday nights are party nights.  But more often than not, it's just a go out night, when you're happy to just go out for dinner somewhere.  Dinner and a movie in the same night is a truly special night.

--You pull a muscle simply by getting out of bed in the morning, or during the morning shower.

--You look forward to your garbage and recycling stuff getting emptied on Monday mornings.

--You pat yourself on the back whenever you manage to be utilitarian about something.  Today I brought five DVDs I don't watch anymore to F.Y.E., got $5.50 for them, and then turned that over, with $14, to get a DVD I've wanted for a long time, The Verdict.

--Speaking of which, you find yourself wanting DVDs of movies made in 1982.

--As a comic has said somewhere, you find your body is losing hair where you want it, and growing it in abundance where you don't want it.  (I'll leave the rest to your imagination.)

--It's possible that the high school you went to may be closed due to lack of enrollment.

--And your junior high school has already met the same fate.

--Your birthdays remind you more of the finish line, and so you no longer enjoy them.

--You find yourself thinking that a forty-five year old actress looks attractive.  Forty-five used to be old and ugly.

--You notice that it's been a very long time since your favorite musicians have recorded something new.

--And that actors you remember as a kid have started dying off.

--Or you're amazed that your favorite actors are still alive and kicking, if not exactly making movies anymore.

--And you realize that favorites like Kevin Bacon and Tom Cruise and Bruce Willis are the exceptions, not the rule, of longevity.

--And that Meryl Streep is the exception in terms of favorite actresses who are still a little bit of a force in Hollywood.

--Your favorite recent actors are younger, or, if they're your age, they're newer to the business.

--You don't know the newer musicians and singers anymore because you're too busy wearing out your CDs.

--And that Bon Jovi and David Bowie and Green Day are the aforementioned exceptions, not the rule.

--And that you tend to listen to the one station playing 80s music, which you realize is in existence solely for those who, like you, have realized that they're gettin' old.

Seward's Successful Defense of an Insane Black Man

Photo: William Seward, from his own Wikipedia page

After watching Spielberg's Lincoln, I bought the book much of the movie is based on, Team of Rivals, by Doris Kearns Goodwin.  Because I'm nerdy like that.  On page 85 is a true account of William Seward's defense of William Freeman, a former slave (last name ironically notwithstanding) who, after years of extreme mistreatment in jail, was released and almost immediately broke into the home of a rich white man--a friend of Seward's, in fact--and killed him, his pregnant wife, their little child, and his wife's mother.  This was undisputed during the whole trial.

The amazing thing about the trial is that, after Freeman was found guilty of the murders, Seward chose to defend him, for free, during the penalty phase.  Long a supporter of prison reform and reform for the mentally ill--and long an abolitionist--Seward realized that Freeman, who was deaf, dumb, and, according to Seward himself, an "imbecile" and a "maniac"--committed those crimes because of his maltreatment in jail for a crime that, it turned out, he never actually did to begin with.  (This case reminds me a bit of Murder in the First, an 80s movie with Christian Slater and Kevin Bacon, and Gary Oldman as a sadistic warden).

And so Seward, who had already served twice as Governor of New York, and who would soon run for president and lose the nomination to Lincoln (partly because of this case), defended him, this black man, who in March of 1846 wiped out a family of Seward's friends.  I found, free on Google Books, Seward's entire closing argument for the case--all thirty-one pages of it.  (!!!)  Full title: Argument of William H. Seward, in defense of William Freeman, on his trial.  In it is some fantastic stuff, including--

--Seward's insistence that Freeman belonged in an asylum, not "on the scaffold," because he was insane.  This was practically a brand new defense at the time.  In fact, though relatively new, Seward reminded the jury a few times to not consider the overuse of the insanity defense against his own insane client.

--A very strong argument against capital punishment itself.

--A very strong argument against the treatment of the insane.

--A rebuke about the bias accorded to the "negro" and to the insane.

--An impassioned stance against the slavery Freeman had lived under, and the mistreatment in jail he had incurred.

--A reminder that had Freeman been white, and the murdered family black, there would have been no trial.

--A warning to the jury to put aside their bias against "the negro" and "the infirm."

--A reminder that, although the murdered family's family and friends were all over the courtroom, the defendant's family was not, because they were slaves, and nobody could track them down.

--The oft-repeated quote: "The color of the prisoner’s skin, and the form of his features, are not impressed upon the spiritual immortal mind which works beneath. In spite of human pride, he is still your brother, and mine, in form and color accepted and approved by his Father, and yours, and mine, and bears equally with us the proudest inheritance of our race—the image of our Maker. Hold him then to be a Man."

And many more things.  And he won!  After a successful appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court (apparently the well-written argument given to the case's jury had no effect), he was spared from the scaffold and died of consumption in a cell somewhere.  An amazing thing, for one person to defend a person of a race oppressed by his own society, who killed a family of his friends.  Seward had everything politically to lose (and he feared for his safety and that of his family, too, from an enraged local populace during the lengthy trial), and he had the bias against the race and the insane to overcome.  All to save a man who never had the sense to know what was going on, to thank him or to pay him, who was never going to see the light of day, even if victorious.

I wonder if any politician today, with the public the ravenous and rabid dog that it is, would have the courage of his own beliefs to defend a man who had done this, who was as hated by his society as he was, who had killed a family of friends, solely because of Seward's beliefs against capital punishment, against slavery, and against bias against blacks and the insane.

I wonder if many of us would, even those of us outside the public eye.  Would many of us even take such a stance against someone at a social gathering?

Doubtful.