Eighty Ain’t No Party
80 ain’t no party.
I’ve told you numerous times about my physical ailments. I guess I’ve pretty much worn that subject out. Well, it’s the truth, and it’s on my mind a lot.
I guess I should just be happy I’ve made it this far. I guess.
Of course, I never really expected to live this long, but here I am. For some reason, in my youth I picked 55 years to be my limit, but here I am at 80.
My mother when in her late 90’s asked me if I thought she would ever die. I responded, “Hell, no!”
I, on the other hand, expect that my demise is inevitable. I’ve had so many friends close to my age pass away. I miss some of them. My classmates from the Pineville High School class of 1960 are presently falling over at a pretty quick clip.
I have a friend from college I email about once a month to just check his pulse: so far so good.
I have been allowed to accomplish most of the goals I set for myself. I was a hard working high school teacher. I was a great school district librarian. I remodeled my 100 year plus house. I made myself a popular artist. I’m working toward completing 500 essays, a bunch of poems and some fictional short stories. I’ve collected some of these into four published books. I have maintained a website which provides a space for fellow artists and fellow writers and myself to tell folks we exist. But enough about me---never.
Linda and I have been married for 53 years. It was easy for me. I’ll speak just for myself. Linda may have a different thought.
You might have noticed that I started my list of accomplishments with my first real job at the age of 25, teaching.
Well, there’s a reason for that: I got off to a slow start.
I was a scrawny kid who turned into a scrawny adult with not a lot of obvious plusses. I saw this coming from an early age. Scrawny and not pretty and not gifted. Okay, I can deal with that.
Somewhere along the line, I discovered I had a couple of gifts: a better than average brain and an innate ability to see who people actually are. These two gifts have compensated for a lot of scrawniness.
Frankly, my first sixty years were just fine as far as I’m concerned, but the last twenty have been even better.
Go figure.
enough