This week has been a cause for celebration here at Greene Publishing, Inc. Our publisher and fearless leader, Emerald G. Parsons, celebrated her fiftieth birthday. I must say, she approached the day with a great deal of grace. Some may have been a little "down" at such a milestone. To her credit, Emerald handled the event rather well.
Now, I surpassed that particular milestone several years ago. I must say, when I hit 50 years old, I didn't think a lot about it. I withstood some good-natured ribbing from some of my friends. I remember one friend gave me several new pairs of reading glasses. One friend gave me an alarm clock with really big numbers. I still use that alarm clock and I do appreciate the fact that I can see the numbers without any visual assistance.
Funny how in my youth; 40, 50 or even 60 years old seemed to sound, well … rather old. I don't think that way anymore. In fact, I have every intention of living to the age of 105. So far, so good. Although my left knee frequently disagrees and attempts to convince me otherwise, I don't feel particularly "old." I look around at some of my friends and others who are around my age, and they don't look particularly "old." I look at my friends from my youth and so many of them look just a great as they did 40 or so years ago. I won't be so arrogant as to think they would say the same for me, but it would be nice if they did see me that way. Next summer, I will be seeing some of those friends for a reunion. Many of us will be approaching 60 years old. It seems like a mere 40 years ago that we were all kids with the idea of singing songs and making the world a better place.
Every time I consider the idea of getting older and it happens to get me "down," I simply think of the alternative. The fact that I have spent as many years as I have here on the "sunny side of dirt" doesn't seem to be so bad.