Mid-Life Soul-Searching With the ‘39-and-Holding’ Crowd

Residents here say he put their town on the map. So to show their appreciation, this city 50 miles north of Chicago paid a three-day tribute to their favorite son, commemorating the 54th anniversary of the 39th birthday of Benjamin Kubelsky, better known to the world as Jack Benny.

They called it the “39 Again Birthday Celebration” in memory of the radio and television comic who--were he anyone else--would have been 93. But the son of a Jewish immigrant who ran a dry goods store here is best remembered for his enduring gag of staying forever 39, a gag that grew funnier, not cornier, until his death at 80 in 1974. The gag still gets laughs today.

Why 39? Psychologists and the folks teetering at the edge of 40 may see it differently from Benny’s daughter Joan, who is “39 and holding.”

“I would guess that number was randomly picked,” she said in Waukegan for the “39 Again” festivities. “Some numbers are naturally funny and 39 is one of those numbers. Everything my father did, he did for comedy, for a laugh. There was no hidden meaning.”

But a lot of people disagree. “Forty is a threshold,” said Irene Goldenberg, a psychologist and professor of psychiatry at UCLA. And with 40 viewed as the traditional entry into middle age, staying 39 represents a denial of the transition.

“There’s a reason Jack Benny chose to stay 39,” said Los Angeles television writer and producer Jim Jaffe, 37, who anticipates turning 40 with as much relish as “looking forward to root canal.” In the TV and motion pictures business, “there’s always been this kind of Wunderkind element. To be successful, executives should be no older than 35. There are a lot of executives in this town shaving years off their age,” he said.

“I see a lot of people struggling with the idea of moving from their 30s into their 40s,” said clinical psychologist Sondra Goldstein of her Los Angeles private practice.

Their struggle is generally accompanied by lots of questioning and soul searching. And while the issues vary from individual to individual, the areas open for questioning are pretty standard--career, marriage, relationships, children, physical appearance and ability. It all boils down to one basic question: What do I want to do with the rest of my life?

‘I Feel More Secure’

“It’s not at all traumatic,” said North Hollywood attorney Ronald Garber, who reaches The Big Four-Zero Saturday. “I feel more secure at 40 than I did at 30. I don’t want to sound smug but I’m pleased with myself, things are coming together,” he said, citing greater economic independence, job security, respect from peers and social comfort and confidence.

“But I also must confess that about a month ago I had hair transplants and I had liposuction, a surgical process for fat removal,” added Garber who said the timing of these acts was not accidental.

“I often find in my practice and among people (in their late 30s) I know that there’s a tremendous surge in exercise, more healthy eating habits, and a lot of emphasis on making the most of appearance, including plastic surgery,” psychologist Goldstein said.

And efforts to defy the inevitable ravages of aging and gravity take many forms.

“I haven’t eaten ice cream in nine months and I used to be a daily user,” said newly turned-40-year-old Donald Cooper, associate director of educational films for the National Geographic Society in Washington.

Goldstein credits what she says is a quadrupling of liposuctioning in the Los Angeles area to the oldest baby boomers as they look 40 straight in the midriff.

Experts say that many of the issues people this age deal with revolve around erroneous concepts they have of what being 40 means and looks like, concepts often formed at a younger age and that do not jibe with today’s medical, social and scientific realities.

“Forty has no sex appeal to a lot of people. Turning 40 seems like its straight downhill,” Jaffe said.

“I think I equated 40 with decrepitude,” said Jacqueline Kolb, a book designer with a Chicago publishing firm who recently turned 40. “I had a very vivid image of my stepfather whose hands shook when he drank coffee at the age of 40.”

Contemplating Marriage

Kolb also found herself contemplating marriage to her live-in companion of five years a few months before turning 40. “The idea of having a boyfriend instead of a husband seemed immature at 40. ‘Living together’ seemed like something younger people do.” But after a thorough study of the Illinois marriage laws she decided “the state’s idea of marriage and my idea were not the same,” so she did not marry.

The Jack Benny 39 gag endures despite the fact that average American life spans have increased by 14 years since the comic first started telling it. It’s now 74. Life expectancy may have increased since her father’s day, but Joan Benny notes that at 40, on average, your life is half over.

But there are real changes, particularly for women who until fairly recently were expected to accomplish the goals society set for them--marriage and family--by 30. As a result, said psychologist Goldenberg, many women had their mid-life crises at 30, a decade before their male counterparts.

But with more women in the workplace and with the deferral of marriage and childbearing more socially accepted, baby boom women “have been granted an extension,” Goldenberg said.

“Sure, I feel the biological clock ticking,” said Sheila Berman, a lawyer by training who runs a not-for-profit arts organization in Washington and who turns 39 on Sunday. “But at the same time I have a sister-in-law who’s having a baby in March at 41. . . . Just because I’m turning 39 doesn’t mean I’m reaching a dead end or feeling panicked about (marriage and children).”

“Age is a matter of mind,” Benny said in his second farewell special. “And if you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

Donald Cooper concurs. “By the time I turned 40 it was a relief. . . . I aways felt that 30, 40 and the big numbers down the line are artificial divisions. The fact is you turn 40 and it’s just another day to take out the garbage.”

‘It’s My Turn’

“It liberated me,” said Andrea Branning, another just-turned 40, who often sports a royal-blue sweat shirt that reads “39ish” in bold, white letters and numbers across the front. “I can say I’ve been a good mother and a good wife and now it’s my turn,” said the San Pedro technical writer and mother of three.

Looking back, Linda Levine, 46, a psychologist at Palisades High School--who like Jack Benny was born on Valentine’s Day--scoffs at the 39/40 trauma.

“My friends who were most traumatized were those who did the least to make the most out of their lives. I set goals at 30 and worked my tail off for 10 years to accomplish them. . . . I don’t see myself in the back nine holes of the golf course. I don’t wear sensible shoes yet and I still wear bikini underwear.”

Or as one intrepid new 40-year-old said on his birthday: “I got up this morning prepared to face the firing squad and I found out the guns weren’t loaded.”