When I change age I say I am that age for a while…then I begin owning the next age. One of my many oddities. So, I feel 69 and that is the front porch of 70. How did it happen? One day at a time. I used to see folks at University who worked until my ripe old age and wondered how they did it. Now it does not seem so old. When they told me it happens quick I had no idea how quick. I have heard with age comes wisdom…I cannot tell. Wisdom is elusive. It dawned on me a few years ago that I was born a week before Halloween. Hence my love for fall and Halloween Stories.

I saw a 8 millimeter film of me at my first Birthday Party. The kids around the table were laughing and eating cake and I was crying. Perhaps I thought I was in a Halloween Story. We lived in Chicago. I thought we always would. The neighborhood reminded me of Leave It To Beaver. Dad rode a Harley Davidson motorcycle and looked like a mobster. Mom looked like a model. Mom liked to do the Twist. She Twisted daily. Dad liked to watch Gunsmoke. Westerns and combat programs were the taste of the day. I had a cowboy outfit and a holster for my toy revolver.

We moved to Eldorado. Our first house was a haunted Victorian. Mom and Dad moved in a vain attempt to put their marriage back together. I remember the cold of my first birthday in Eldorado. The house was cold and scary…the long wrap around front porch was cold. I got warm by standing by the fire in the fireplace. Soon it was Neva J and me. We figured it out. I discovered you do not have to have much to be happy. Happiness is a decision. It is inside you.

So, 69 Is Mighty Fine. 70 is just around the corner.