I Put Things in Perspective....

I turned 60 in June. Not counting for leap years, that’s approximately 21,900 days on this big blue marble. In a span of sixty years I could be born, attend and graduate from high school and college, and then do it all over again two more times and still have a few more years left. All the ups and downs, highs and lows, joys and sorrows that I have been through… in less than 22,000 days… wow! Think how long it takes for a week to pass…, although even that period of time seems to be taking less and less time. If you are still in the work force like I am, you know a week always goes faster if there’s some kind of deadline at the end of it.

Who was it that said, “the journey of ten thousand miles begins with a single step”? The journey to sixty years begins with one day, and then another… and then you’re sixty.

I loved being every age, and I love being 60, although some days the thought of my mortality does startle me a bit. I can remember walking home from grade school and passing the kids walking home from high school and thinking that I would never be that old. When I broke my two front teeth, I remember the dentist saying I could eventually get them capped when I was about 14. I was about 8 at the time, so 14 seemed so far away. Eventually I had them fixed… when I was 37.

I can remember when one of my parents’ favorite singers or actors died and the way they talked about that person. It’s the way I talked recently about George Harrison, Soupy Sales, Whitney, Horshack, Phyllis Diller and Andy Williams.

Time moves quickly, and one September 12, 1978, I loaded up my car in Dumont, NJ, and moved to Phoenix, Arizona. I lived my first 26 years in Dumont and my second 34 in Phoenix. It’s funny, but I still tell people when I meet them that I live in Phoenix, but grew up in NJ.  “Jersey” was great. Although I’ve been fortunate to get out there almost yearly, there is still nothing that has ever even come close to a sausage and peppers sandwich on the Seaside Heights Boardwalk. Maybe it’s the mix of the salt air and the smell of grilled onions and peppers, but whatever it is, it’s been known to lure me from as far away as the Poconos to drive there for one of those tasty sandwiches (and maybe a slice, or two, of Marucas’s tomato pie.

Born in 1952…. Hmm, each year I have to scroll further down drop down lists on computers when I am filling in birth information. Until I really started thinking about all this, I never realized that Pearl Harbor was attacked just 11 years before I was born. In my lifetime, the pivotal world event was September 11, 2001…. And that was eleven years ago. So I’m realizing that my parents and grandparents were still worrying about the possibility of that happening again, just as we are worrying about the Taliban and terrorism. My grandfather on my Dad’s side was a very gentle mean, but I remember the way he spoke about anyone who looked Japanese; it was similar to the way many of my generation worry about and speak about anyone who may look middle eastern.

In the great scheme of things, we’re all only here for a little while. My folks are gone, all my aunts and uncles are gone, and a few of my friends have also made their transition.

I think we’d all like to make an impact, but I’m really not sure what that means. Personally speaking, if someone mentions my name at all in a favorable light after I’m gone, then I think I’ve made my impact. I mean no disrespect when I say I wish I could have found a cure for cancer in my lifetime, or invented something that changed the world… but, I didn’t. But was my accomplishment of making Dean Brendel laugh until chocolate milk came out of his nose causing a whole room of kids to fall out laughing not worthy of some kind of praise? I think so, and that incident is the kind of thing I look back on to reassure myself that I’ve made my own impact. I’ve raised and supported a family, done my share of volunteer work, and I’ve been kind whenever I’ve had the opportunity, so I’ll add those things to my “impact” list, too!

I mean, seriously, although I hope it’s not so, I could be gone tomorrow, or even before I finish this sentence (in which case you’d never be reading this). So, I try to be mellow and go with the flow. So my apologies to the man driving the blue Prius this morning to whom I rolled down my car window and called a dickhead. I don’t know what came over me when he came across two lanes of traffic without even looking to get into the carpool lane…alone.

OK, I’m done. I had not posted to my blog in a while and just thought I’d get a few things out in the open. Have a great day… and if you have the opportunity to make someone reroute their milk through their nose…. Do it! You’ll still be telling people about 50 years from now.

Whitey out!