On Turning 76: from 2022

 

I didn't post for my 76th birthday in 2022, so this is from the handwritten entries in a notebook. 

Turning 75 had something regal about it but 76 is just terrifying.  Several times I caught myself thinking "I'm 67, not so bad," then realizing it's 76.  76!  Maybe a Marx Brothers approach to soften it: 76! That's the spirit!  The spirit of 76!\

I climbed Trinidad Head.  Felt slower, but I felt better having done it.  It was sunny when I started.  At the top, on the bay side, I could see four layers of mountains, including the blue blur in the distance.  On the way down, at my power spot facing the ocean, I watched an enormous cloud bank at the horizon move towards me, white in front but gray behind.  Before I'd made it down, the sea was already gray against a darkening sky, with but a bright line at the horizon.  

Also on the way down I was passed by a fellow geezer walking up--he recognized my cap as a throwback Pittsburgh Pirates logo.  He thought 70s but it's really 60s.  

This past week I was going through mail from the earlly 1970s for a project and found old birthday cards.  So regardless of what comes in the mail tomorrow, I will have cards to look at from my mother, my grandmother and my sisters.  I feel sorry for people these days who don't get mail they can keep, or don't keep what they got.  Maybe you have to be 76 to feel that.