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Today is my birthday, which I share with Bob Ross, Joseph Goebbels, and the ballpoint pen.
I am seventy-three years old. Just saying that feels unreal. When I was born in 1949, average life expectancy for a man in the UK was about 65 years; I have somehow managed to beat that.
I am part of the generation that didn’t trust anyone over thirty, and who made terribly dangerous choices on a regular basis throughout their thirties and forties. By the 1990s, what with all the drugs and the booze and the carousing, I was certain I couldn’t possibly reach fifty, and I wasn’t all that sure I wanted to.
Now, I have kids in their late forties, grand-children in their thirties, and I am sure that great-grand-children can’t be far away.
The fact that I am still here, walking and talking and pretending (to myself at least) to be young, is astonishing, a wonder, a miracle of modern medicine, and a tribute to the Everloving who takes such good care of me.
My future keeps catching up to my present and I hope it keeps doing so for a long time. After all, I have promised myself my first ever Big Mac on my one hundredth birthday!
Jak's View of Vancouver v.3 
I also feel that to be born in 1949, the Forties(!) is unreal. Can’t believe I’ve been around that long! I was listening to the radio this morning and a fellow said when he thinks of himself, he feels like he’s 35, but when he looks in the mirror, there’s a different reality! I kinda feel that way, too. I just want to continue to feel like I’m 35! L.
So your days of being a wild & crazy guy are not yet over! I thought we were the same age, but it turns out I am a year younger – or will be in late December. I will obviously accord you greater respect and dignity knowing your elder status now now! (not much chance of that actually!)