Forty-Two

In the land of Lutherans, it is not uncommon for someone to say, upon reaching their thirty-second birthday and with their tongue planted firmly in their cheek, "I’m in my Jesus year," a reference to the fact that the, ah, events for which Christ is most well known apparently happened when he was thirty two.

I recently realized that I’m in a special year also; my Salteena year.

In 1890, Daisy Ashford wrote a novel of manners entitled The Young Visiters, or: Mr. Salteena’s Plan. Miss Daisy was nine years old at the time. Despite her youth, Daisy A.’s keen eye enabled her to distill Victorian British culture to its two essentials: Become a gentleman. Marry well. The novel’s hero, Mr. Salteena, manages to achieve the former, though the latter, alas, evades him.

All this happens (or doesn’t happen, as the case may be) in the year he turns forty-two, a fact [author] tidily establishes in the memorable opening line: "Mr. Salteena was an elderly man of forty-two."

Upon realizing (fully halfway past my birthday) that this in fact was my Salteena Year (SY), I rushed to make up for lost time. No, I’ve not attempted to have myself registered in any directories of the British peerage, nor have I proposed any trips to Vermont to Peg. But a research team of which I am a member (and whose other members themselves are either approaching or leaving behind their SY) has been busy developing the Saltini, a cocktail with regional variations. (So far, these include the St. Peter, the Cleveland, the Austin and the Mock ‘tinis.)

I recently began thinking how much easier it would be to leave my Salteena year behind, come July, if I knew there was another special year coming up at forty three. Indeed, how much more exciting each year would be, if you knew it was your [insert famous character from history, literature or the arts] year. What youngster wouldn’t look forward to her Beth year (named, of course, for Jo March’s really, really, really, really nice sister who died of tuberculosis)? Or her Harriet the Spy year? Scout year? (Named, of course, for the little girl in To Kill a Mockingbird, not for the year she flies up from Brownies.) For adolescents, there’d be the Stephen Daedalus year. The Holden Caulfield year. Adults? The Willy Loman year. The Mozart year. The Ishmael year. The Sylvia Plath year. You get the idea.

And this is where you, our well-read readers, come in. We’d like to create the Phil on Hol Calendar of the Years, with (at least) one special figure (literary or historical) attached to every year between one and, well, as high as we can go. (Okay, so I don’t think many people will actually hit their Noah, Abraham or Sarah years, but what the heck?)

So, send your submissions to Phil on Hol, Calendar of the Years Department, Box 354, St. Peter, MN 56082. Every submission will receive the coveted Dental Kare Kit and will become part of the Calendar. (In the case of multiple entries for a particular year, we reserve the right to make final selections.) We’ll publish the results in an upcoming issue of the ‘zine.

Other 42 notables:

1. Forty-two is twice the age of my neighbor and fellow food coop worker, Yosh, whose birthday is the day before mine. That is, I’m exactly twice his age, which is also twice the legal drinking age. Weird.

2. Forty-two is the generic age of men. When a man’s age is utterly unremarkable, utterly predictable, it’s 42. When you find out that they are running for mayor or just left their wife or were robbed at gunpoint or any of a million other things, and the news story tells you the guy was 42, you don’t even notice. Forty two is the default age.

3. Forty-two, according to Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, is the meaning of life. Hmmm. Maybe that goes along with being the default.