One of my earliest childhood sweethearts was, believe it or not, a woman named Sophie Tucker. I have never really figured out why, but something about that woman charmed and fascinated me when I was a child. She used to sing a song called "Life Begins at Forty." One of my great childhood goals was to buy a record of her singing that song. I even found out that she performed in a club in New York, and I began to make plans to get there to see her in person.

I began to wonder ... was it she, or that song she sang, that captured my imagination? Was it her style, or the title of her song, that caught me up in the stream? As I neared my fortieth birthday I really began to believe that things were going to be a lot different after forty - better and better in every way. Sophie Tucker was right,…