Lennon, Kerouac, and Dad

John Lennon would have been 70 years old on Oct 9, 2010. Many expressed their surprise at this fact; they knew the date of his birth, but somehow couldn't readily accept that he would now be a senior.

I was surprised by people's surprise. For those of us who watched the Beatles' first appearance on Ed Sullivan, or felt smug when parents disapproved of the too long hair, or spent the entire sum of their birthday money on some of the Fab Four's records -  we have only to look in the mirror to get an idea, within a decade or so, anyway, of John's advancing age.

Then there are Paul and Ringo. It's not so much of a stretch to look at Paul and Ringo and imagine how John would look. George would have been 67 on his last birthday. No, I wasn't surprised at all, perhaps amazed that so much time had gone by in a flash, but not surprised by the age.

But Jack Kerouac is a different story. Kerouac died in 1969, at the age of 47. Bad boy and literary icon, he was frozen in time for me - Beatnik idol to future hippies, forever on the road, drinking and carousing, writing and experiencing.

Because he died just after I became a fan, he was more symbol than idol. Kerouac and his escapades, his road, were not part of my lived experience in the way the Beatles were.

Part of that difference was surely that between music and literature; never did anyone read Kerouac's work daily to millions in the way that disc jockeys played Beatles' music. And Kerouac's road was not the hippie road. Kerouac's road still had hobos and more than a touch of the depression era about it.

For the longest time, I admired Jack Kerouac's writing, the Beats' take on the world, never really thinking about context.

Then when my father turned 88 this summer, the math clicked into place. Jack Kerouac and my father were born in the same year; in fact, Kerouac would be older than my dad by a few months. As much as my father is my hero, he is not my idol for rebellion and bad behaviour, for being a proto-hippie, Beat poet/novelist, benzedrine-taking experimenter with prose.

When Kerouac was listening to Ginsberg reading at the famous Six Gallery, I was listening to my dad read to me. My early listening probably led to my love of Kerouac and all things literary.


So, when someone my age expresses surprise at how old John Lennon would be, I would like to suggest looking in the mirror. When anything makes me realize that Jack Kerouac would be older than my dad, though, I am and will stay, in shock.