November 28, 2010

Althouse in 1970.

Yes, it's me, age 19, sitting under a Norman-Mailer-for-Mayor poster:

Image-7F031DAF365611D9
(Enlarge.)

Just something I ran across as I work on restoring that photo archive. And yes, do the math. I'll be 60 soon. In less than 2 months. I can't think of anything to do about that.

PHOTO CREDIT: Stephen Cohen.

56 comments:

traditionalguy said...

I prefer your Law Student picture sent around the world so many times. But whatever the image, your brilliant writing and thinking skills out shine them all. Thanks.

Rose said...

Where does the time go? Summer used to last for a year. Now it is gone before i know it. Used to be we were on the outside of the record,* on a long slow lazy arc, and now we are on the inner track and it is going around faster and faster... I don't know what to do about it either. But we can live to be 115, so we aren't hardly middle aged...

(* record... round, vinyl, a disc of polyvinyl chloride plastic, engraved on both sides with a single concentric spiral groove in which a sapphire or diamond needle, stylus, is intended to run, from the outside edge towards the centre)

Ron said...

Giant Commmenter Party/MeetUp that's what you can do about it! It can all be about the Love for The House of Alt!

Meadester -- you must take point on this, as I suspect your BlondiBear will do a lot of feet shuffling!

Patrick said...

Would it be out of line to suggest that the young woman in the picture never imagined that she would spend any portion of her summers canoeing the WI river, and Kayaking in Lake Superior?

chickelit said...

I can't think of anything to do about that.

Celebrate sexagenary

AllenS said...

I just turned 64 a couple of weeks ago. Man, time is flying. Do you feel the same way?

chuck b. said...

All the girls from that era looked the same. It was a very same-y time, when everyone bowed to conformity and marched in step.

Reliapundit said...

60!?

NO WAY.

U R HOTTER THAN EVER!

THIS MARRIAGE AGREES WITH YOU!

Night2night said...

As with all things, this to shall pass. Still, as my father still reminds me (at age 82), better than the alternative.

BJM said...

I can't think of anything to do about that.

Throw a huge party and dance all night?

btw-love the look.

David said...

"I can't think of anything to do about that."

Sure you can. Keep publishing photos of when you were 19.

I reject as fakes and frauds all photos of myself over the age of 55.

I'd publish pics of myself at 19 too, but there aren't any, as far as I know. You were a more fetching subject, Althouse, so there must be many more of you available.

Anonymous said...

Norman Mailer?

Remember when he was thought to be a great intellectual?

Back before we realized that he was just hopelessly psychotic?

Of course, we all thought that what NYC needed was a great intellectual mayor... when what it really needed was Rudi.

reader_iam said...

Unfortunately, it's now too close to a cultural, popular image of the time that's too evocative of Susan Atkins. Despite the lack of cable TV and the internet/web then, even then there was this phenomenon of dripping pop culture/pop news culture with the ability to imprint folks with image filters that might/can last for a lifetime.

That picture is creepy, not because it's of you, Althouse, but because it's now just of a type, which allows it to be easily confused with other specific symbolic imagery of the era.

reader_iam said...

I prefer your Law Student picture ...

I'm sure you do. But even that one... .

Anonymous said...

All the girls from that era looked the same.

They certainly did.

And I'm not talking about their faces :(

Peter

LutherM said...

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

reader_iam said...

All that doesn't mean I don't "get it."

reader_iam said...

Then there's this oldie.

Joel C Anatoli said...

Nice photo. Must feel nostalgic looking at it again.

reader_iam said...

The point of nostalgia is--what?

Althouse herself, at an earlier time anyway, explicitly disavowed sentiment, sentimentalism, sentimentality--you know, all that jazz. And she's followed through, for the most part.

Just for fun, I'm inclined to view these posting-pictures-of-me entries as teasers, as playful bait, as the equivalent of a beautiful 19-year-old running through a field of daisies knowing how enticing that is to onlookers.

; )

jamboree said...

Wow. This is so different from the student one. I don't know what it is, but you look like you and LInda Blair are about to run away from home to the Manson Family Ranch with Leslie Van Houten. (I'm kidding obviously).

Penny said...

"All the girls from that era looked the same. It was a very same-y time, when everyone bowed to conformity and marched in step."

Hm? Maybe someone didn't take the time to TALK to all the girls who appeared to be "the same".

William said...

OK, the roses were redder and low back pain was nonexistent back then. But for all that, a wish to be governed by Norman Mailer was its own kind of hell....My enemy grows older and no longer has the energy and inventiveness to cause me much harm.

Christy said...

I want back all those years I never had: 29,39,49. And it sounds like you didn't get to be 59either. It's always almost-60, almost-50....

We should all age as gracefully, milady.

Kirk Parker said...

Rose,

Let me flaunt my nerd credentials and point out: your analogy is wrong, an LP turns at a constant RPM, so that as you get to the inner grooves, the angular velocity remains the same but the linear velocity is lower. It's the newfangled... re, I mean obsolete CD that turns faster for the inner tracks.

But now it occurs to me, maybe yours is correct after all: we are the ones moving slower, so that everything else seems speeded up by comparison.

Michael said...

Those were the days, my friend. We thought they would never end.

Fred4Pres said...

You look stoned in that photograph.

Banshee said...

Happy upcoming Sexanary of Survivalhood! I'm sure Meade's glad you didn't kick the bucket while pathetically young!

Opus One Media said...

reaching 60 isn't nearly as bad as not reaching 60

Unknown said...

I love that pout - and you still have it.

And I agree with Reliapundit. Kiss your husband, Mrs Meade. He has made you younger than Springtime.

You seem to be having a problem with 60 (Hey, when I hit 50, the lyrics of September Song kept bouncing around in my head). Night2night is right, though. It's a number and better than the alternative. I'm in a position where I have to remind The Blonde of that - she's had a rough Thanksgiving.

Looking forward is the thing. And with a light heart.

PS It wasn't all the girls that looked alike. It was all the people - male and female - who aspired to hippiedom. Funny how Leftism requires lockstep.

virgil xenophon said...

Yikes! I was a hot-shot 26 yr old fighter pilot Capt in the USAF stationed in the UK, fresh from a combat tour in Vietnam at that time--what a difference 6 years makes when one is young...now?....Ann and I--save for the difference of our sexes--are virtually indistinguishable (roughly speaking) in lifestyle, dress, out-look and comportment. We're all pretty much slouching toward that same oblivion. Now life--at this age--is more about "get by" than "world's to conquer."

ndspinelli said...

Screw numbers, just live and enjoy life. La dolce vita!

Clyde said...

Hey Nineteen

You knew that was coming, right?

TWM said...

I see now why you enjoy posting those photos of beautiful young women with long flowing hair, casual clothing, and no makeup.

That was you . . .

Big Mike said...

I'll be 60 soon. In less than 2 months. I can't think of anything to do about that.

Welcome to the club.

Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) said...

Enjoy 60. Enjoy your marriage. Enjoy your work. Enjoy your blog.

In many ways things are just getting good. I turn 62 in a couple of months and we're adopting an infant in just a few weeks. Crappy nappies aren't for everyone in their 60s, but heck, what am I gonna do in my 60s? Write shitty poetry and work on my golf game?

Besides, all spring I have to get up three times a night to check on five large greenhouses full of baby flowers. Feeding and changing a kid is a barely noticeable addition to that task.

Find something that takes you outside yourself, and enjoy the rest.

sarainitaly said...

Cute. You look like the girl in The Graduate, Elaine.

MadisonMan said...

Re: Turning 60.

Have a party. Can I suggest paying for your whole family to take a cruise somewhere warm?

(ducking)

madAsHell said...

Wow! Hippie chick!...with photographic evidence. How did the photo survive the student years?

I wasn't a hippie chick, and I'm thankful there is no evidence.

My kids have digital cameras, and I don't want to see the evidence.

Triangle Man said...

Can I suggest paying for your whole family to take a cruise somewhere warm?

How generous of you MadisonMan!

MadisonMan said...

(laugh).

Well, I wasn't clear, was I?

The cruise should be on althouse's dime, not mine.

Michael said...

Of course time flies. Bigger denominator.

I recommend "Younger Next Year". It works up to a point.

J said...

Miss A-house is an ...Ahhts gal too.


Im reaching for chianti, chronic, and puttin' on the Dead....

Daniel Fielding said...

Ann- was this photo taken in East Quad?

Triangle Man said...

I realize that these are not representative samples, but you seem much much happier in recent photos than those you have posted from your youth.

Duncan said...

Ann, Your look has certainly improved over the years.

You and R will hit 60 on the same day in January. I get to wait 9 months more.

Jeremy said...

The Queen: ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME...EVERYBODY...LOOK...IT'S...ME.

Duh.

Daniel Fielding said...

Jeremy- STFU and go away and hang out at DU or Daily Kos.

Trooper York said...

Hey didn't you take that in front of the LaBianca's house?

Lincolntf said...

Sorry I had a fight in the middle of your Black Panther party.

ken in tx said...

My wife looked like that then too. I know because we've just been looking over some old photos. I am glad to have her. We are both in our early 60s. She is an M.D. and I am retired. Enjoy your life!

Terrye said...

I will be turning 60 next fall..and I can't think of anything to do about that either.

Bummer.

Mr. Bingley said...

People with January burfdays are the bestest.

Anonymous said...

60? Welcome to a very unexclusive club!

David Begley said...

I don't get it. It looks like black hair at age 17.

Ann Althouse said...

"I don't get it. It looks like black hair at age 17."

Red photographs dark in black & white photography.

You can see the color in 2 photographs here.