Notes of
Concern…
…Jackson Blair
Threescore Years
and Ten
and Ten
The Bible
Psalm 90:
The days of our years are threescore
years and ten
*
* * *
I
am writing this week’s column on my 70th birthday.
June
4th has seen me enjoying a lot of celebrations over the years.
First,
those celebrations were enjoyed with my parents, aunts, uncles and cousins.
Those were really great days. Our whole family had a wonderful place in the
country where we would gather for weekends, holidays and birthdays. My mother
came from a very large family so I always had cousins with whom to play. We had
“celebrations” of one sort or another almost every weekend in the summers.
When
I became a teenager, birthdays took on new meanings and a new set of
celebrating friends. As I recall, riding in convertibles, dating, stealing a
forbidden smoke of a cigarette and pretending to enjoy an occasional beer were
the highlights of teenage birthdays.
College
introduced another new set of friends who could put together a pretty good
birthday celebration. In those days we could use almost any occasion for a
party at the local bar or restaurant. I would have to admit that I really
learned to “party” in college.
On
this birthday, this special one, this 70th one, I am alone with my
dogs at one of my favorite places on earth, Prince Edward Island. My wife is
finishing up her work and will join me in a week or two. So this birthday will
be more quiet than usual. It will be
very different from the great majority of my June 4ths but I can see it will be
special in a different way.
A
time for reflection.
A
time for remembering all those previous birthdays and for giving thanks for
good health and a wonderful family.
As
I sit here looking out on St Peters Bay, listening to birds chirping loudly,
and wondering what flowers I will plant this week in the boxes and planters on
the deck, I am also admitting that I have reached the biblical definition of “a
life.”
God
said: Threescore and Ten!
God
seems to have suggested that is the “use by date.”
In
the bible it reminds us that one might get “fourscore” due to good health (and
good genes?) but that we are all scheduled to “fly away” one day.
In
grocery store language I have reached the “expiration date.”
I
don’t like to think about expiring. So I think I will not.
I
am grateful I can chuckle about the “don’t use after date” because I am pretty
sure my wife has plans for me for a few more years. She finds more ways to make
use of me every year. She and I have been “with” one another for 49 years this
year, although our actual anniversary on June 15 will be our 45th
year of marriage.
You
can be certain that I do not subscribe to the current ridiculous kind of
statement that would suggest, “70 is the new 50.”
I
know I am seventy.
I
certainly know I am not fifty.
Lest
I would forget, my body reminds me every day.
My
hearing needs a lot of help.
My
eyes are dry.
Arthritis
finds new areas of opportunity in my body daily.
Much
of my hair has already “flown away.”
My
skin is requiring hydration.
(This
list could be longer but I don’t want to ruin the great day I am having so I am
concluding it right now.)
I
am alive and enjoying my family and my friends.
At
the moment I have no medical diagnosis that would cause me to worry.
I
love where I live now and where I vacation and where I will retire, and I look
forward in so many ways to things on my schedule for tomorrow, next week and
next year.
It
is great to have four children who are healthy and happy.
It
is mindboggling to me that I get to enjoy seven grandchildren and will be
meeting number eight in July.
I
am still pretty “spry” and have a largely positive attitude.
It
is true I have lost many friends to death over my life. Some of them died way
too young. Some died when their bodies could no longer fight off horrible
diseases. Some died serving in the military and making it possible for me to
live free.
They
are physically gone from my world but never far from me in my memories.
But
the real pot of gold at the end of my rainbow is that I have so many friends
who are my age, some who are in their eighties and a few in their nineties. I watch how they approach life and I am so
proud of all of them.
They are not a group of gripers, whiners or
excuse makers. They confront life every day with appreciation.
They
make it possible to be positive about the future.
So
tonight I will enjoy a martini, dinner with some friends here on the island, a
late walk with my Labradors and a good night’s sleep.
And
I will begin contemplating what birthday #71 might look like next June 4th,
a birthday like any other if, as my father used to say:
“the good Lord’s
willing and the creek don’t rise.”
