Better, faster, stronger. And so forth.

When I was six years old, my grandfather died of the hiccups. Actually it was an aortic aneurysm, and the hiccups were either caused by the aneurysm or caused it to burst—I’m not sure. All I remember is, I was six, and my grandpa had just died, and I was not supposed to hiccup around my father.

When I was 10 or so, I had a conversation with my dad in which he casually mentioned that he would almost certainly not live past 70, because his dad didn’t and most of the men in his family seemed to succumb to something or other at around that age. The women of his line all lived until 100, even while their spines crumbled and their brains turned to custard, but the men (who were probably like my dad—amiable, didn’t want to be a bother to anyone) up and died at relatively early ages. At the time of this conversation, I was none too pleased at this news, but at the same time I thought, well, 70 is exceedingly old, after all, and by then it will be The Future, and we’ll all be living on the moon. And then I wandered off to play with my Atari 2600 or whatever the hell I was doing at 10.

Flash forward to the wonders of the 21st century: my dad is rounding the corner to 70, and while he’s known about his aneurysm for a while, apparently it has become too big and impressive to ignore. Luckily for us, surgeons now have sophisticated techniques to remedy such problems. (When my grandfather succumbed, way back in the seventies, all they could do was apply a poultice, shake a rain stick at him, and hope for the best.) Surgery is scheduled for a few weeks from now. There will be some sort of graft, and I’m pretty sure there will be lasers! Okay, maybe not, but I can hope! At any rate, at the end my dad will have a Super Bionic Heart, and everything will be okay! Better than okay! Yes!

Because technology is on our side. Do you hear that, old man? As for this whole not-living-past-70 thing, well, I hope you’re over that, because the Future is Here and your grandson is 2 and a half and if he doesn’t get to remember you just like I can’t remember my grandfather, I WILL BE SO MAD AT YOU.

Luckily, he's not the target audience.

My parents took Henry for the weekend, bless their grandparently hearts. Today I got to hear my dad expressing his utter disdain for Noggin. You might have to know my father to be amused by the idea of him watching a channel for preschoolers. My dad is a certified smart guy, an MIT grad who reads probably 37 books a day (I exaggerate, but only a little), a man blessed with the intellect of, say, a Lewis Lapham, but without the liver-spotted cranium. The charm of a Walter Cronkite, but with a sliver less good-Lord-is-he-still-alive-ness. The hair of a Phil Donahue, only less so. So anyway. Here he is in our living room, fresh from a Noggin-packed morning with Henry.

Dad: I can’t watch it for more than five seconds without screaming.

Me: What were you watching, exactly?

Dad: [grimacing] Some kind of “big, bigger, biggest” puzzle. Involving a cow.

Me: You realize these puzzles aren’t meant for you?

Dad: And then there was a Spanish-speaking girl.

Me: That would be Dora.

Dad: And her nitwit monkey. He wore boots.

Me: That would be Boots.

Dad: [frowning] And Boots loses his lunchbox by throwing it off a bridge. He’s such a mindless dope that this monkey swings his box around and WAAAIOO there goes his lunchbox!

Me: You really took this personally.

Dad: And then Dora fishes it out with a reel, like that would work. Even if the fishhook could grab the lunchbox, like it wouldn’t tip over and its contents would not simply fall out into the water…

Me: Wow.

Dad: [Shaking his head and downing the rest of his scotch] I tried explaining this to Henry but I don't think he was listening.