I turn sixty-three today.
Bunch of people right around my age will tell you that’s not really that old.
Whole bunch more people out there would likely tell me “Yes it is. We’re talkin’  like… ‘dirt’, okay?”
Our grandson is nine years old, and in certain emotional and developmental senses, I have more in common with him than I do with folks my age.
Yup. He’s nine …
… which is (coincidentally) sixty-three in dog AND Grandpa years.

I have come to realize that my life is full of blessings, albeit some of them are somewhat mixed in nature.

1) Tye Dyes are fashionable again, but wearing them makes me look like Wavy Gravy.

Hugh Romney, a/k/a Wavy Gravy: catered breakfast in bed at Woodstock

2) Back when I turned 23, we were still fighting and losing a long, senseless, costly, deadly and futile war overseas, killing thousand of (our own) children, but now
Fuck that. When I think about it, that’s pretty much the only thing that hasn’t changed in the forty years since.

3) To save money on men’s moisturizers, I’ve learned that I can actually use Preparation H to smooth out the wrinkles of my Crow’s Feet, but every time I fart my eyelids slam shut.

4) My monthly auto insurance premium through AARP is 15% less than the posted speed limit on our street, but that is (coincidentally) also the fastest I can drive without breaking into a cold sweat.

5) I can get into the movies for half-price, but have to go back a week later to see it again ’cause I can’t remember how it ended.

6) I can tolerate heat much better than I could when I was younger, but in a cool breeze my back gets stiffer than Jennifer Aniston’s world-renowned nipples passing the twenty-year-old body builders on the Venice Beach boardwalk.

7) I can’t drink more than eight ounces of liquid for two hours before going to bed, but I can usually sleep through the night. Depends.

8) I thought up all of these by myself but don’t get half of them.

10) Out of both love and respect, I have been able to scrupulously avoid using the number “9” since John Lennon was taken from us, but it confuses people too much when I replace it with the word “yoko”.

11) I sometimes forget what I was saying but…

       … I forgot what I was going to say.

12) “Mr. Happy” can still reach just about all the way to my belly button, but I need to call at least two of my neighbors to help me stand on my head for that to happen.

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