There’s a famous British documentary series called the Up series, where director Michael Apted started following a group of 7-year-olds and has returned to them every seven years to see how their lives have changed. The titles reflect their age at the time — “7 Up,” “14 Up” and so on. Last year, they came out with “63 Up.”
I turned 56 on Saturday. That happens to be a multiple of seven. So I’ve been trying to remember what my life was like at all those seven-year checkpoints.
7 Up (January 1971): I’m in first grade. My teacher is a black woman, Mrs. Lewis, which is a big step in our county — years later, I’ll find out that it’s the first year the county schools were integrated. All I know is that I love Mrs. Lewis and wish she taught every grade. I can read faster than anyone else in class, and I run slower than anyone else in class. My mom and dad work at the seafood plant. I play kickball and dodgeball with the neighborhood kids. I draw mazes in our dirt yard with a rake.
14 Up (January 1978): Eighth grade, middle school. I’m the lead in the school play — “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” It’s a musical, and one day the teacher plays back our rehearsal with a videotape recorder — the first one I’ve ever seen. We all hate the sound of our own voices. But backstage, behind Snoopy’s doghouse, I kiss the first two girls I’ve ever kissed. By then I’ve also made two best friends. One, Perry Beard, is already up at the high school. The other, Virgil Ryals, is the smartest, funniest kid I’ve ever known. One day we’re talking about our families and he tells me his grandmother is a teacher. It takes a few minutes before we figure out his grandmother is Mrs. Lewis, my teacher back in first grade. Some people are meant to be friends.
21 up (January 1985): I’m a junior at the University of Georgia and I’m a mess — drinking too much, blowing off classes, gaining so much weight I’m down to a couple of shirts and a blown-out pair of jeans. I have two salvations. One is my friends. The other is my job at the college newspaper, The Red & Black. I spend most of my waking hours there, learning how to interview reluctant sources and omit needless words. Every day the paper comes out is a high. Back home, my dad is sick and has been for years — he smoked most of his life and the poison has caught him. My mom had quit the seafood plant after getting injured on the job but goes back to work as a waitress because we need the money. She keeps our household together a roll of pennies at a time.
28 Up (January 1992): I’m restless. I’ve been at The Charlotte Observer for two and a half years, but I’m stuck (or at least I feel stuck) in the Rock Hill bureau. I’m writing columns down there, and I don’t know it at the time, but they’re perfect practice for when I become local columnist for the big paper later on. I’ve collected another best friend, Joe Posnanski, who’s writing sports in Rock Hill. In another month or two I’ll have a girlfriend. But I’m still chafing. My dad died two years before, back in 1990, and even though I’m young, I start to feel time whistling past. That summer I’ll get so frustrated with not getting promoted that I quit the job (and the girlfriend) and move to Atlanta. That turns into a six-month disaster. When I come crawling back to the Observer, they are kind enough to let me in.
35 Up (January 1999): Somehow, the life I wanted has appeared in my hands. After a few years as the Observer’s music writer, the paper chose me as the local columnist, and I’ve been doing that job for a year and a half. It feels like what I’ve always been meant to do. More important, I’m six months the husband of Alix Felsing, the best person I’ve ever known. We live in a second-floor apartment in South Charlotte with a spare bedroom crammed floor to ceiling with boxes. Soon we’ll buy our first house, a big spread with a pond and a garden. Every day feels like another stroke of luck.
42 Up (January 2006): The house with the garden and the pond proved to be more than we could take care of, so we’ve moved to a smaller place that we love. We brought along a few daylilies and our yellow Lab mutt, Fred, who showed up one day at the old house and never left. We take the dog for long walks through the new neighborhood, sit out on the porch and make new friends. I’m still the local columnist and it’s still the best job I’ve ever had … but I’m also feeling that old tug to try something new.
49 Up (January 2013): I’m eight months into life at a startup called Sports On Earth. After 23 years, I left the paper for good — not because I didn’t love it, but because I hungered for new stories and new places to try things. Alix still has her job at the paper, which is good, because a few months from now Sports On Earth will let me go. Her steady salary and benefits keep us afloat while I hustle for work. I have new energy for writing, but I can also hear the drumbeat of time. The world is aging around us. My mom has been to the hospital a couple of times for ulcers. We’re having to start tugging Fred around the block instead of him pulling us. I’m neglecting my body, as I most always have, and I’m up over 400 pounds. I know I have to do something. I always decide to start tomorrow.
56 Up (January 2020): So many highs, so many lows. I wrote a book about my struggle with my weight, and it touched some people, for which I will always be grateful. Not only that, I’m getting healthier. I have a new job at Charlotte’s NPR station, WFAE. People used to recognize my face from the paper; now they recognize my voice from the radio. Alix and I have been married 21 years. She does something every day that makes me fall for her all over again. But the last couple of years have been a grim parade. Virgil died, out of the blue, a heart attack. Alix’s dad died suddenly, giving us just enough time to be by his side. My mom died after a long, exhausting illness. Alix’s mom started to show some memory issues and so we persuaded her to move here from Tennessee. My two most important journalism mentors, Jay Lovinger and Frank Barrows, died within a couple of months of each other.
This is what happens, we know, when you live this many years. Some days the grief is overwhelming. But some days the joy is, too. Just last night we took Alix’s mom out to dinner, and on the walk back to the car, we looked up at the moon. It was a clear night and the air felt fresh in my lungs and the moon was a miracle. How many nights over 56 years have I looked up and seen that light in the dark? How many times have I held my wife’s hand as we walked? So many times I can’t count them all. But I know how many I want. More.