Time Keeps on Slippin Into The Future

So, next week is my birthday again! This year I am hitting the double nickle mark, or 55. In some places I will be considered a senior citizen. Its funny because I don't feel any older you know? In my head I am still the 21 year old that I was all those years ago. The reality is I am not.

When I was young, back in the 60's and early 70's they were running rockets to the moon. I remember being so excited to be able to watch the rocket launches on TV when they broadcast from Cape Canaveral.I remember seeing the Lunar Rover driving around on the moon's surface and Neil Armstrong's walk on the moon. All important things in history.

I also semi remember Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King's assassinations. Patricia Nixon's wedding was another memory I can share. We didn't have computers, phones were wired into the wall, we carried boomboxes with cassette players and we recorded music off the radio. The Jackson 5 and The Osmond's were popular as well as Barbie dolls, Hot Wheels, Spirograph's, Pee Chee folders, and those four way different colored Bic pens.

In high school we listened to the end of disco, and we took classes like typing, accounting where we did a balance sheet with paper and pen, and short hand. Does anyone take shorthand anymore? We learned how to tell time, how to count change back, worked math with pencil and paper, and there were no calculators or computers. If you had to do a report you used the encyclopedias or read books to find your subject matter.

In a lot of ways our lives were simpler in those days. There was no cyber bullying or school shootings. We didn't worry about meth addiction or crack cocaine either. We played outdoors until it was dark and we took the streetcar or bus anywhere we needed to go without worrying. Kidnappers were around, I am sure but they were few and far between so we didn't have that fear, nor did our parents.

I just think back to where I started, and where I am now and I am amazed at how much things have changed. We have improved technologically in leaps and bounds. Science has revolutionized how we survive diseases. We have cars that drive themselves, vacuums that work independently, phones with GPS, and computers that can fit in the palms of our hands.

I guess in getting older, I realize that I have survived a lot but witnessed a great deal as well. The road in front of me isn't as long as the one that I have traveled and that is a sobering thought. We all want to live forever and no one wants to think of their demise. I am thankful to have made it this far in life when many of my friends did not. I am grateful to be able to see my children grow up and now my grandchildren start their lives. At one time I was part of the younger generation, I have now graduated to the oldest ones.

So, happy birthday to me on January 25th. I've come a long way and I have the battle scars to prove it. 55 is old, but not ancient and I still got a lot of living left to do.