LXV

O woe is me. I’m not 23. I’m not even 25. I’m almost older than dirt and yet lucky to be whinnying amongst you all. As I reflect on my three score and five I wonder at how fate didn’t take me out long before this. How did I last longer than me own sainted mither? The answer has to be: clean living and a fortunate gene pool. If you throw in a downhill paper route and a Kevlar liver it begins to tie together the unfair inequities of life.

I bet luck is what it’s all about. I have done all the things that I taught my children not to, and yet I don’t have a limp and the only prosthetic device are my bifocals. I’ve got most of my own teeth and hair that’s unfair. The family thing, without boring details, is fabulous. I’ve been from here to there and lots of places in between and one of my only regrets is that there are so many places left to see but not nearly enough time.

It is interesting to ponder just how much time there is. We of course don’t know and only our own individual minds can attempt the calculus of how long our progenitors lived and in what kind of shape. Did I quit smoking soon enough? Will that old skiing injury take its toll as the arthritis gallops in to take control of my body? Is it a good thing that my older sibs are hanging in valiantly and that we will die off in order, or will I become the sacrificial goat?

I always tended to do things that should have done me in. I had a Harley down in Texas that I spent as much time under as on top. I bought my single lunger BMer 250 when I was still in a full length cast from a skiing mishap. I used to strap my crutches on the back with a bungee cord when I was down at State U. I’ve skied from the top of Mt. Washington and the top of Pike’s Peak, which it turns out, isn’t any easier when you’re straight.

There’s a lot more that now embarrasses and makes me wonder what possessed me, for surely the dibble himself must have been behind some of the idiocy and daring do. I like to think that I developed some skill along the way which may have helped. After crashing or rolling a half dozen cars before I got out of my twenties, I’ve been accident free these many but fleeting years. I’ve even survived Woods Hole (more luck than skill) but I plan to go back and that just can’t be very smart. Not so much a death wish as a Russian roulette kind of thrill. Sailing into hurricanes is a thing of the past.

What I worry about is an humiliating end. The dragged out disease that ends me up in the long-term care center of the VA hours from here. Or discovering and trying to cope with Alzheimer’s before it sucks me into the vortex from where no wise cracks will be heard from these lips again. I think I beat the chances of a stroke when I had my cheese choked carotids rotor-rootered, but you never know. An aneurysm suggests itself if only because the delicious irony of not being able to speak again would give so many of y’all a chuckle.

But the surer bet is that I’ll probably still be teaching the first time skiers from the local grammar school how to make turns on the slopes when I do hit my biblically touted 70. And, god knows I hope not, but there really shouldn’t be any reason not to be still flipping burgers at Phil’s if the building outlasts us. By that time Owen will be riding a bike and JP will be driving. Of course I want to see if he really does get into Yale and if Josephine can kick his butt in Karate by then, so I better start cleaning up my act. More exercise, fewer carbs, cut back on cocktails. Look both ways when crossing the street. No more grand standing hand stands for grand children. Take deep breaths when watching the news. Keep emailing friends and obey the speed limit.

If this sounds a little grim to some. It ain’t. It’s just the reflections of someone who is almost two thirds through an interesting life.