Well, I suppose it finally had to happen. If you just keep putting one foot in front of the other and moving forward, sooner or later you're bound to get old. Now just where past forty old is, is pretty much anyone's guess, and is certainly open to interpretation, but I think most would agree sixty-five is pretty much it. In other words . . . you ain't just getting up there anymore, you've officially made it. This realization came home hard to me a few days ago, when I received a little birthday present from President Obama. Not exactly Obamacare, which of course doesn't dates back to the Lyndon Johnson administration like Medicare, but somehow it feels like it nonetheless. So what's left after age sixty-five and before the eventual end of the road? I dunno. Got about five more years to slug it out in the employment trenches (Dad retired at age sixty--but that was then and this is now) decent health be willing. And of course I'll be working on getting my late-life fiction writing career off the ground. I guess I can probably do that until I plow face forward into the keyboard. After that, it's just a matter of sticking around until I finally find out if the mystics of old, or the skeptics of today are right about what waits beyond the final door. I lot of wonderful memories to look back on, and a whole new adventure up ahead. I hope I'll be like good old Bilbo Baggins, as he waited to board the elfin ship bound for eternity . . . "Well,. I think I'm quite ready for another adventure!"
Having spent the last six and a half decades wandering the Misty Mountains looking for the meaning of life (and never quite finding it, I might add) I hope I'm ready for another adventure too. Thanks to all my friends for making this milestone day, not one of sadness, but of joy. Take care now. Talk to you all again in a couple of days.
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