It’s early Friday evening and Burke and I are at a local watering hole irritating all of our neighbors.
“My turn,” I shriek.
“OK.”
“Meow meow meow meow meow-meow-meow-meow-meow. Meow-meow. Meow meow meow meow meow-meow-meow-meow-meow-meow!”
“Billy Joel’s For the Longest Time!”
“Meow!”
We celebrate.
“Meow-meow-meow-meow.”
“Beethoven’s 9th Symphony?!”
“Meow!”
We celebrate further.
At 51 years old, I figured that discovering new talents was behind me. I have long resigned myself to the fact that I’ll probably never find a till-now-unknown skill for dunking a basketball or archery or high dive fluency. But that all changes on Friday, July 24 2026 at around 5ish. I hummed a few lines of CCR’s Proud Mary in all meows and my life was changed in an instant. Burke made me do a few more songs (Radiohead’s Karma Police, The Star Spangled Banner, Happy Birthday (Stevie Wonder), and Gin and Juice).
There was no doubt: I am a genius.
Well, that just started things from there. I started meowing everything. Burke tried too – the kid’s okay, but she’s no vocal meow prodigy like this guy. To be fair, she’s been working at it these last few days and she’s coming around. She did a halfway decent version of Gangsta’s Paradise yesterday. A bit pitchy, but she’s coming along.
But I have to say: I am the one to watch. I have recorded meow song messages for several members of my family on Facebook Messenger. Despite their insistence that I ‘stop immediately’ for the ‘sake of the family’ or they will ‘contact the authorities’, I think they’re dazzled.
All of the other talents I have discovered within myself later in life can’t make me any money. Though I am particularly fond of my newfound ability to spend the exact amount on a gift card, the sad truth is nobody is going to pay me to do that. Well, unless it’s my birthday.
I want all of you fiftysomethings and sixtysomethings out there who think that your time for talent discovery has passed – it hasn’t. All you have to do is put away your phone and find yourself with nothing to do. Then put yourself into an arena for discovery. This could be anything or anyplace: a local Little League field, a tree in your yard, your bathroom.
Next, just let yourself loose and see what happens. You never know what you’ll learn about yourself. You might be able to whistle tunes backwards or identify a bird, or write the world’s most perfect S. You never know. The world is your oyster – which you may find a talent for shucking like a madman.
If you need more than me as an example, remember that Grandma Moses didn’t start painting until her late 70s and Harland Sanders didn’t conceive of KFC until his mid-60s. And imagine if they hadn’t? Tragedy.
