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.
