Article July 3, 2000 Issue

Tell us when it's time to party

Is a birthday a reason to celebrate?

By Kay Ramsdell Olson

Forty. 40. A number . How important is a number? That depends. Forty dollars comes in handy. Forty miles an hour? A bit slow on a superhighway, but mandatory on some roads.

According to statistics given in a recent magazine article, age forty is a big issue. In the year 2000, more than four million Americans will turn forty ("The New Midlife," U.S. News and World Report, March 20, 2000).

I remember the 1940s, when magazine advertisements routinely promised: "Life begins at forty!" But then there was the popular comedian Jack Benny, who insisted that his age was thirty-nine, despite all evidence to the contrary. And there were the birthday cards that often described age forty and beyond as "over the hill." Somehow all that created the impression that forty-year-olds were on a downhill ride from then on.