Ask A Genius 1371: Rick Rosner Reflects on Earliest Memories, Aging Realities, and Life in His 60s
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/05/10
Rick Rosner recalls his earliest memories from age two, living in Boulder, Colorado, including Raggedy Ann curtains, puzzles by a piano, and hiding from the Perry Mason theme. He describes “memory of a memory” experiences, including crushes and poolside fears during summer visits to his father. Rosner reflects on aging, noting the looming awareness of death, the benefit of lowered expectations, and the downside of invisibility in romantic terms. He contrasts gym culture in the U.S. and U.K., praising British youth for their focus. While accepting the physical and social shifts of aging, he maintains humor and perspective on the journey.
Rick Rosner is an accomplished television writer with credits on shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Crank Yankers, and The Man Show. Over his career, he has earned multiple Writers Guild Award nominations—winning one—and an Emmy nomination. Rosner holds a broad academic background, graduating with the equivalent of eight majors. Based in Los Angeles, he continues to write and develop ideas while spending time with his wife, daughter, and two dogs.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for The Good Men Project, International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN 0018-7399; Online: ISSN 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), A Further Inquiry, and other media. He is a member in good standing of numerous media organizations.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What’s your chronologically earliest memory?
Rick Rosner: I’m about two years old. When I was two, my mom divorced my dad and married my stepdad. We moved to Boulder and lived in a house at 1110 Sixth Street.
It was a one-story house in the front, but on a sloping lot, so it had two stories in the back. I had the basement bedroom. It was decorated with Raggedy Ann and Andy curtains and a matching bedspread. My earliest memory is looking at those Raggedy Ann and Andy curtains.
But honestly, it’s not much of a memory anymore. It’s been remembered and re-remembered so many times that it’s more of a memory of a memory now. I do have other memories from around that same time. I remember Perry Masoncoming on. The TV was in the living room. The theme song scared me, so I’d hide behind the couch.
We had an upright piano. I remember working on a puzzle of the 50 states on the floor next to it. So, yeah—my earliest memories are all from that house.
How about you?
Jacobsen: Parents fighting.
If I had to remember clearly, I might remember playing Super Mario at my grandparents’ house.
Rosner: My mom and stepdad, I lived with them for a time. But every summer, I was sent to live with my biological dad for a month. He’d take me to his parents’ house—my grandparents’.
One of my earliest memories is of the apartment complex. It was a standard two-story building with a swimming pool in the middle—a classic Van Nuys layout. I don’t know how old I was—maybe four or five.
They got me swimming lessons. I was scared of the water. I remember—again, this is more a memory of a memory—holding onto the edge of the pool and refusing to let go.
It was the same rough time period, I think. I remember walking through the neighbourhood. There were power poles braced with a crosspiece and slanted support to the ground, and sometimes, those would get covered with vines.
So you’d walk through this kind of vine-covered archway. I remember that. But none of these are exciting memories. Oh, I had a crush. I think it was on my dad’s sister. Was it Aunt Janice? Or maybe one of her daughters?
There was that show, The Patty Duke Show, in which Patty Duke played identical cousins. It was on in the early sixties, so I probably saw reruns. I decided someone on my dad’s side of the family looked like Patty Duke, so I developed a crush, at an inappropriate age, probably five.
Jacobsen: What are the best and worst parts of getting older? Or just… knowing the time is ticking away until you’re going to fucking die?
Rosner: Yeah—that’s the worst part. Knowing that the clock’s ticking, and the end is coming.
I guess the best part is… Slack. People don’t expect as much from you. But that’s also a downside, because Slack is dangerous. You get away with not being productive, and I still need to do shit.
Another bad thing? Well, not bad—because I’m not in the market to get laid, and I was never particularly good at picking people up—but nobody wants to fuck me on sight anymore. Few people ever did. But now? Sixty-five-year-old me? No way.
What else? Being the oldest person in the room. In every fucking room. I don’t love that.
I went to the gym a lot when we were in London, and I go to the gym a lot here. At the Y—the YMCA—it’s mostly older guys, so I’m often not the oldest. But at other gyms? Yeah, I’m fucking old. Though I’m skinny, my hair really gives away my age. A lot of the older guys at the gym have slack bodies. But anyway, I did it. I kept going.
Jacobsen: More women than men your age, however?
Rosner: No, not where I go. Because I go to the gym. And the gym is still mostly men. Oh, and one last thing I noticed before we wrap up. In Britain, people seem slightly more serious about working out. There are still plenty of people parked on machines, staring at their phones, but way fewer than in the U.S.
At the gyms I went to, people were chatting with friends, but they were also doing sets. It was less frustrating. Now, I was in Kingston—a suburb of London—which has a ton of college students. There are also these “between-year”schools, like prep programs between high school and university. So, between the high schools, the colleges, and the gap-year preps, there were a lot of students.
Maybe I just haven’t been working out around that age group in L.A. lately, but it seemed like those kids were really out. I was slightly impressed.
Jacobsen: The end?
Rosner: The end.
Jacobsen: Talk to you tomorrow?
Rosner: Talk to you tomorrow.
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