This Happened Today

Today I am 69 years old. I still find it very hard to believe. That is a lot of years and the next birthday is the big 70. I don’t feel 69. I’m pretty healthy and active. I don’t act 69. I don’t only listen to Classic Rock radio and I am a big fan of Tiktok. I don’t look 69. At least that is what people say, but maybe they are just being nice. I will admit I do feel old when one thing occurs. If I am on the floor, and have to get up to standing. Wow, then I feel 89.

I think attitude is the key to not feeling your age. My attitude is that of the little boy who grew up in Slatington. In fact, that little boy is inside of me every single waking moment. I am still that little five year old who fished, off the 7th Street Bridge, with his dad on opening day of trout season. Sadly, the bridge and the dad are both long gone.

I’m still the nine year old boy who would spread out his baseball cards on his porch on Dowell Street and try to sell them to strangers passing by. I would never have sold my Mickey Mantle cards. He was my idol.

I’m still that ten year old sledding crazily down Shooky’s path, and over the railroad tracks, at the end of Willow Avenue. What a great gang of kids were there, from Dowell Street, North Street, and Willow Avenue. There should have been a name for us.

I’m still the kid in junior high walking down Second Street, past the Lutheran and UCC churches, in my jacket and tie, looking forward to the Saturday night dance in the junior high cafeteria. Then walking home to our second floor, Second Street apartment. My mom would ask me who I danced with. She died just two years later.

I’m still that high school boy who, looking back, knows he could have been a better student. But boy did he have fun. He liked girls, and sports, and the cafeteria food. Anyone remember meat potato burgers, sometimes called porcupine meatballs? He still thinks fondly of his 120, Class of 1970 , classmates. He still drives by that high school building from time to time, nostalgic for all of those good times.

Here I am, a 69 year old man, with a soul of a growing boy. It’s just the way I want to be. I hope I feel the same at 79 and 89 and dare I say it 99. I’m still that boy who likes to jump in puddles. I’m still that boy who loves sports, and women, and right now I am thinking about a delicious meat potato burger. Happy Birthday to me!!