I turned 75 on Friday

Yep, 75. 

I have now reached the age that when I die, no one will say “He was so young!”

I’m in the third phase of life “Youth, Middle Age, and. . . ‘Good for You!’” or ‘God Bless You!’ or ‘You Look Great!’ What people really mean is “and you’re not dead yet? -freakin’ amazing!”

And it is amazing. I know too many peers who didn’t make it this far and I am grateful, truly fall down on my knees and say “Thank You!” grateful to be alive and still breathing. Well, except maybe the “fall down on my knees” bit might be an exaggeration ‘cause getting down is much faster than getting back up. 

Still, I am grateful. I know that “getting old is a privilege denied to many.”

A lot has Changed in 75 years

When my parents were a little older than I am now I asked them what was the change that had the biggest impact on their life. Without missing a beat they said “Refrigeration!”

I was shocked. My dad and mom were born in 1904 and 1908 respectively – I thought cars, television, moving off the gold standard for our currency.

“Nope, refrigeration, absolutely!” My mom went on “Honey, we lived in central Florida. You bought your vegetables every day, and you bought your meat as late in the day as you could.”

“And if you forgot to put the 25¢ card in the window for the iceman, everything spoiled.”

“Refrigerators were freedom!” They said again in unison.

I’ve seen a lot of technological change in my time so far on this planet: portable music -Walkman-iPods-Spotify, ever-smaller computers from building sized that Mom programmed to my old iPhone SE 5 body/7 guts “Man that is so small; it’s a really old phone. Does it still work?”

I remember carrying change for toll booths and payphones. Now coins sit in a pile on my dresser. Using maps, I drove a cab pre-GPS. How’d I do that?

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