Happy Birthday, Ken!

It's an awful news day.  Most of you are joining me in thinking and praying for the country of Japan and the victims of the terrible natural and not so natural disasters that are ravaging it. Most days, after reading the top news stories of the day, I am saddened and confused. To improve my mood I see what fluff is out there.  Lately, I have read so much fodder about Charlie Sheen in the fluff section, that I just skip to the nonsense section.  Today I have read in the nonsense section that Ken, the beloved hunk whose claim to fame is standing in the shadow of that floozy called Barbie, turned fifty yesterday.  Having been raised with three sisters, Barbie was a staple in our home.  The girls had a more classic version of the doll than today's Barbie fans have ever seen.  They had all the clothes and shoes, and I'm sure my little sister, who is, by the way, the same age as Ken, had a cool car for Barbie.

It was so much fun, as a kid, watching the sisters play with Barbie and her friends, because if they were playing with Barbie and her friends, they were usually happy and nice to me.  Anyway, along with the afore mentioned floozy came this shell of a guy named Ken. I know Ken was in our house at times when we were growing up, but I can't remember if he lived there, or if he visited from some other planet named "Joe's sisters' friends' houses."  I was not sure what to make of Ken in the olden days, but I was sure that I would look like Ken when I grew up...tall, fit, good looking, and a hit with the girls.  Yeah, that happened.  I was short, soft and shy.  No matter, though, I found love and am a family man who is very thankful for all the little things some take for granted.  I am, however, amazed at the sight of Ken at fifty.

A physical comparison of men like me at fifty and Ken at fifty would horrify the powers that be at Mattel.  First of all, we, the average guys in our fifties, didn't have that tight looking stomach, so why should he? Even the flattest and fittest of fifty year old bellies is not that shape.  It's time for his middle to pop out and soften a little.  Secondly, his hair is brown with blond highlights and he has a full head of it.  Don't you think it's time he start realizing the art of graying gracefully?  At fifty, my brown hair had turned gray and my blond highlights had fallen out.  Next,  Why is it that Ken's eyes have turned bluer over the years.  Is he wearing that newly discovered luxury...colored contact lenses.   And why doesn't he have any laugh lines or crow's feet?  He should appreciate what was given to him by God and enjoy eyes that are also turning gray, albeit not as fast as his hair.  Finally, At fifty, he has a bald body.  Does Barbie like him better this way, or would she prefer that he grow some chest hair, some leg hair, heck, even some hair on the back of his neck!

What about the environment of the fifty year old?  Ken is single.  He is probably a womanizer, with Barbie being the womanizee, even though his hair, eyes, and physique are all artificial.  I remember an incident when escorting my parents to a doctor appointment for my Dad.  In the waiting room, Mom went to register Dad, who had been taken to the examining room in a wheelchair.  I went and sat in a chair with a magazine in hand and waited for Mom's return.  Upon finishing with the receptionist, I overheard her say to Mom, "You can go sit with your husband now, Mrs. Bonanno."  That receptionist was talking about me! Mom quickly corrected the rude and obviously unperceptive woman in her Mom sort of way, "That's my son."  Mom was 81 at the time, I was 49.

I remember a time way before the fifties that had me putting in a row of small trees in the yard and my small daughter being behind me as I crouched to fill a tree filled hole with dirt.  She screamed, "Daddy, your head!!"  I answered, "What, Sweetie, what's the matter?"  "Your head.......I can see it!!"  I hadn't realized that this was the beginning of cringing every time the barber shows me the back of my head in the mirror every time I'm there.

I am priveleged to work with elementary school children.  If an elementary school child had Ken helping them while in his fifties, the question of age and why he was the way he was would never arise.  I, on the other hand, have been asked if I was alive during the Great Depression, if I have dyed my hair the color it is now, if the Statue of Liberty was still copper colored when I was a young boy...heck, I remember my first week on the job, I was told by one precious little third grade girl that I reminded her of her Poppop!  I was not even fifty at that point!

I realize that the target market for Ken dolls is not even aware that this moron has no brain...or lungs, heart, or stomach. He has never experienced the joy of helping a child, or the good fortune of having parents who he admired and enjoyed in good health and bad, or the special memory associated with every gray and missing hair and pound gained, or siblings that have been a constant stability in his life, or a wife to witness the glide into the fifties, or his own children who are quite honest about his aging process, or the privelege of having the good and bad news of the world at his fingertips.  I think I like my way of aging better.  Happy Birthday, Ken!