Three score and 10 years ago
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
Being raised a minister's daughter, I teethed on Bible texts, Bible stories, Bible admonitions. No matter how many years go by or how many ways your life changes, those things stay with you! Bible phrases, along with my sense of right and wrong, what to eat and not eat, how to behave, are all an intricate, indelible part of whom I am.
It's things like, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!" and "The days of you life will be three-score and 10." I try to live by the first example every day and I am reminded of the last phrase more emphatically as I approach that magic number, 70.
When I was nine, hankering to be 16, three score and 10 seemed a long, long way a way — unimaginable. Twenty-one seemed like a worthy goal, and sometimes I wondered if I'd make it with all the sermons I was listening to about the end of time and the Lord's eminent return.
By the time I was 20, I was married and three score and 20 seemed like a fair enough life span, partly since it was so far away. Sometimes when I'd attend a funeral of someone who had died in their 70s, I'd think, "Well, they lived their life, they had what was promised, they should be content." It was when the young were taken, especially in the prime of their life (which I think in those years meant they were in their 20s and 30s) that I would re-examine my belief regarding a Deity who had anything to do with shutting down lives.
For me, the then-prime of my life was celebrated with things like having children. During those years I was grateful for health and the ability to get the bills paid. Three score and 10 faded in my awareness — it was what my parents were as grandparents.
Once I entered and started to exit the prime of my life I discovered that prime time had moved. During that time I'd gone back to school and gotten a master's degree and a divorce. It was probably the disruption caused by divorce which made me look around for prime time, again. I wasn't sure where it had moved to — was it over? Was it when the kids were home? Was it while you were married? Was prime when you had your most earning power, when your career was flourishing? Or, was prime time now? Now when you still had 10 or 15 years before you hit three score and 10! Maybe prime is when you have some great life-changing awareness and the guts to act on it — like moving from California to Kansas, for instance.
This week I'm celebrating three-score and 10. From this vantage point it seems like that magical number 70 arrived pretty quickly. My baby girl now has a baby boy and I'm the grandmother.
I don't find myself hankering for some age-goal like I did when I was 10. In fact, I don't think about my age very often. But as three score and 10 approaches I have found my self re-evaluating how I spend my time (truthfully, I do this on every birthday).
"At this age," I say to myself, "maybe you have a shelf life of 10, 15 or 20 years. Choose what you want to do and do it!"
It's another day in the country and I just received my first birthday gift. I opened up The Week magazine and the headlines said. "Seventy is what 50 used to be!" Hey, folks, I read it in print, so it must be true, I'm in my prime! Three score and 10 is PRIME!
