Age-Fudging

When people get to a "certain age," they sometimes are reluctant to admit how old they are. I've never met any sixteen year olds who weren't eager to let the world know they had reached that milestone. They are old enough to drive! In some cases, they are old enough to date. That's a birthday people want to let the world know about.

Add a half-century to their age, and that attitude might be different. I know some sixty-six year olds who are proud of their age, but I suspect I know more who had just as soon keep it quiet. I've known some "golden agers" who refused absolutely to let anyone know exactly how golden they were. I admire that kind of gumption. If they don't want to tell their age, why should they? What business is it of anyone else anyway? Let them stick by their guns and leave us wondering.

Others "fudge" their ages a little. That is a delicate way of saying they have become revisionist historians -- you know, like revising their birth dates forward a few years. In reality, they are lying . . . and as is the case with all lies, the tangled web can sometimes turn around and catch the liar. It can be little things . . . like a "forty" year-old woman getting her invitation in the mail to join AARP or the "fifty-something" person who is found to be a Social Security recipient. Sooner or later, those deceptions do find us out.

Human beings aren't the only things that play with ages. Institutions do that, too, but they usually try to make themselves older than they are. Take my alma mater, for instance. I graduated from Freed-Hardeman College (as it was then called) in 1976. I have framed on my office wall my bachelor's degree from Freed-Hardeman. I'm proud of it; it is part of the first set of bachelor degrees that venerable institution awarded in modern times. However, the college seal printed in gold on the paper proudly proclaims that the school was established in 1908. Look at Freed-Hardeman University's literature today and you will notice that the school was established in 1869! Thirty-nine years -- that's some pretty impressive age-fudging.

If the powers-that-were at Freed-Hardeman had left well enough alone, they would be celebrating their centennial this year. Obviously, they didn't have a hundred-year celebration in 1969, because back then their founding date was 1908. Since somewhere along the way over the last thirty-two years, they decided to dabble in revisionist history, my alma mater doesn't get to mark this milestone anniversary. There is always a price to pay when we start manipulating history.

For What It's Worth: Freed-Hardeman traces its lineage back through a series of 'predecessor institutions to 1869. At one point, the line was dated to 1884 (Bicentennial Medal issued by FHC in 1976). It is a tenuous link. The present institution was established by A. G. Freed and N. B. Hardeman in 1908 and was called National Teachers Normal and Business College. The college's name was changed to Freed-Hardeman College in 1919 andthen to Freed-Hardeman University in 1990.