50 just a number, and not odd like others
By Paul Tash
Editor and Publisher, Montana Tavern Times
My family has seen some milestone numbers in the last year ... my son turned 21, my daughter turned sweet 16, my wife and I celebrated (kind of) our 25th wedding anniversary, and both of us turned 50.
My 50th was last month. It's funny how folks treat the big 5-0. It might be the most unanticipated birthday in a lifetime.
Turning 50 didn't mean much to me. It sure beats the alternative, as I've said to the many who felt it necessary to ask how it felt to turn 50. It really is just a number, if you can get out of bed in the morning.
As a matter of fact, there's lots of good things about turning 50. Kids are beginning to leave the nest and ... kids are beginning to leave the nest ... and kids are ... well, you get the picture.
Really, the only birthdays that count for anything is the one that allows you to drink legally and the one that allows you to start seeing a return on some of that Social Security money you've been donating your entire working life (I'm assuming there's going to be some Social Security money around when I see that birthday).
But turning 50 did get me thinking about ages, and numbers, and the oddness of some of them.
For one, the drinking age was a really dynamic number when I was finishing my teen years.
The drinking age was 18 when I started high school. We actually had kids in my class old enough to knock one or two down at lunch and return to school. Even as a goofy, immature high school senior, I thought something was not quite right about that.
Then the drinking age went to 19 half way through my senior year (1979). Then it went to 21 a few years after that when the federal government pressured Montana and other states to raise their legal drinking ages to 21 by threatening to withhold millions in highway funding.
So people my age went through a strange era when we were legal, then not, then were again. It was a crazy time. I don't envy the bartenders back then. What a carding fiasco that was.
Of course, once Montanans turn 18 years old, they can enter into contracts, pay taxes, serve as elected officials and defend their country – all reasons used to support an 18-year-old drinking age. The military service argument is probably the one used most often, so why couldn't we allow a special exemption for 18-year-old servicemen and women to drink? Just a thought.
I've always wondered, though, what is so magical about 21? Doesn't 20 make more sense? It's a nice round, even number – folks are out of their "teens" and just starting their third decade. And you'd think everybody – even some of my old friends – would be out of high school by that age. Why does everybody skip 20 when debating the drinking age?
Other odd numbers that often don't make sense are speed limits. Is there a law somewhere that says a speed limit has to end in an odd number? Interstate limits are 75, except when they're 65 going through the larger cities in our state. Why not 80 and 70, or 70 and 60?
We had the oddest of speed limits (true in so many ways) during the energy crisis in the early 1980s when 55 mph was the limit.
Oh, the dreaded double-nickel. Even the fine was odd – $5. I had a batch of $5 bills paper-clipped to my car's visor so I could speed things up every time I got pulled over. Why not a $10 fine, or even better a $2 fine? Finally, a good use for $2 bills!
The slowest speed limit I've ever seen was the 5 mph limit in a trailer court my family lived in when I was maybe 11 while our house was being built. I remember my grandmother routinely speeding through the court at 15 mph – the same 15 she would drive on the highway.
Within city limits, it seems every speed limit is either 25, or 35, or 45. Why not 30 or 40 or 50? What is the discrimination against even numbers?
I guess numbers have always confused me, as my high school math teachers would attest. Just the same, I swear some numbers are just plain odd.