Birth Day

Today I turned 59 years of age.  I won’t say ‘old’ because you’re only as old as you feel, right?  It just so happens I feel like I’m still 21.  My body is the thing that’s out of synch: It feels like it’s 99.     

It sure doesn’t seem like I’ve been around that long, though.  I can still remember the baked Alaska shaped like a bird’s nest on board the SS America on my 5^th birthday in 1959 (Does the mental image in your mind at this moment bring to mind a scene that very well could have been in Titanic prior to the ship hitting the iceberg?  Me, too!). 

I can still remember learning to drive our VW beetle—the one with the manual transmission--when I turned 15.  I took my driver’s examination one year later in our Chevy Malibu--with automatic transmission (Thank you, Lord!) and passed despite the fact I parallel parked on top of a paper mache fire hydrant.

I can still remember turning 18, the legal drinking age at that time in the state of Florida.  None too soon either, since I would be heading off to college a mere eight months later and I needed every bit of that time to gain enough proficiency to hold my own against those Black Belts of Beer Drinking at the University of Florida.

I can still remember turning 23.  I was a newlywed going to graduate school and wondering if it could get any better than that.  (Yes, as it turns out.)  

I can still remember the first birthday card from my son Justin on my 28^th birthday and the first one from my son Josh when I turned 31.  While their names were signed in Cindy’s distinctive handwriting, I knew their ink handprints were the real thing.  Handprints trump signatures every time.  

I can still remember running my first race on my 40^th birthday; my first race in the Masters Division.  I won my age group.  ‘Wow, I’ll be cleaning up now that I’m 40 and competing in a division full of runners older than me,’ I thought.  I thought wrong, of course, but it’s what I thought at the time.  Stupid thought bubble. 

I can still remember what I did on my 50^th birthday: I ran 50 miles on a track (200 laps) at midnight Thursday and finished at 9:30 a.m. Friday morning (Friday was my birthday).  Immediately afterwards I drove 4 ½ hours to Tallahassee where I ran in a 50-kilometer (31 miles) race on Saturday, turned around and drove the 4 ½ hours back to Peachtree City in time to run 20 miles on Sunday morning with my regular running partners.  So basically I did what pretty much everyone does when they turn 50. 

I can still remember my 55^th birthday.  I was in Tallahassee again, only this time I ran the 50-mile version of that same race in a steady, pouring ice-cold rain that persisted the entire 8 ½ hours it took me to complete all 50 miles.  I won the Master’s Championship, but it was more a matter of me winning the battle of attrition than it was of me winning the battle.  (Note: I didn’t run my age in miles, something I had done when I turned 40, 45 and 50.  My new rule: After the age of 50 a runner is entitled to drop down to running their age in kilometers instead of miles every five years.  This is not the first rule I made up on the fly.  Nor will it be the last.)

This year Justin gave me two new CD’s from Five Finger Death Punch for my birthday.  I liked them both: Quite a bit actually.  I wonder how many 59-year old men can say that?

Those young at heart, I imagine.