This weekend my little corner of the world celebrated our first of many 70th birthdays. Somebody always has to be first and for this occasion that fell on the broad shoulders of one of my longest held friends, Tim Vincent. We've known each other since the sixth or seventh grade, who the hell can remember that far back.
There'll be plenty more to follow and he won't be alone for very long. Several of us have April birthdays, we have one in May, another in June, one I know of in November, and then a couple more I'm unsure of but I know they are coming along too.
There will be a weeklong celebration late July into early August as I gather with the girls who raised me, the Hammas, and the guy who I've shared more life experiences and laughs with than anyone else on the planet, Tom Barnicle. Upon my return I've already booked my two week stay at Betty Ford here at the Eisenhower complex. I'm looking forward to this week, albeit a little unsure of my time with the girls who I'm fairly certain are plotting some kind of evil torture for me.
Miraculously we survived our childhood by playing outside with no helmets or padding. Naturally we were always thinking about safety while playing in the street because what could possibly happen there that was bad. And did anyone ever really get hurt playing in a pile of rusty metal and sewer rats?
College then arrived and we managed to stay one step ahead of the police during protests and , ahem, other activities. Well most of us did. I managed to spend my sisters twentieth birthday in the local jail for the heinous crime of knocking over a bike and being overserved in public. Good times.
Then life took over for us and we had jobs, some of us had kids, some of us had pets we couldn't control so kids were out of the question. We went along day after day through our lives trying to keep it together and before we knew it, bam, we are seventy.
Now we're busy arranging group sex parties and playing grab ass during bingo at the clubhouse. A few of us are busy with grandchildren while all of us are busy trying to remember where the hell we put the keys and why did I come into the kitchen again? Parties are big fun now because nobody can hear a damn thing so everyone is shouting and we still can't hear over the din of everyone else but we get to go home with a sore throat from screaming all night. And by all night I mean during happy hour from 3:30 to 5:00 when we then go home and go to bed.
Honestly anyone that says they were pretty sure they would still be vibrant and active at seventy is a liar. Almost none of us even thought for one second we would still be alive. In fact we are wondering how in the hell seventy got here so quick. It seems like last week that we were twenty-seven.
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