Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday !!!!

Well today is my 71st Birthday. Yes that many years ago I was born and brought into this world. So far it has been a great life. Not everything has been perfect, but pretty close. There would only be a few things I would change. 

Defiantly I would pay more attention to my weight. I would not have gone on that near starvation diet I did in my first year of college. I ate just about nothing, maybe some dry cereal or an apple ever so often and then took laxatives so that my Bms were clear and then swam a lot to drive my weight down to a dangerous level. I think I may have had anorexia in those days. No matter how skinny I got I wanted to get thinner. If my father would not have had a heart attack and I had to come home for a semester, I may have killed myself dieting. My hair started to fall out and my health in general was real bad, I got sick a lot and always had a runny nose. My mom and dad made me eat better and I gained some weight and my weight problems then stated big time. 

I would also have spent more time with my kids and not been so concerned on my work. I missed a lot of things they did and was not much help to Jackie. I hardly remember the birth of one of my daughters because I was so involved in work that I did not have much time to even think about home. Just trying to keep my head above water at work was a full time activity. But now as an old man I realize how really unimportant the things I did then were in relation to my life and I wish I had just paid more attention to my family. But they all turned out fine. All my girls have graduated from college and are doing fine in life. Jackie my wife was the first female in our family to go to college as far as I have been able to find. Now all my girls have gone and most did outstanding jobs in college and I am proud of them. One of them is of course my favorite. That is a family joke.

I remember when my grandparents were about my age. I though oh well they are going to die soon as they are very very old anyway. Now looking at the same age, I don’t feel old. I really, now after losing the weight I did, feel younger than I did many years ago. I worked in a cannery packing food for low income folks yesterday for a few hours. I picked up sack after sack of bulk food products so that they could be sorted and canned. After working all day, I still felt fine and hardly broke a sweat at all. I am looking forward to many more years and hope the good Lord allows me to stay around for at least a few more years. 

It has been a good life so far and I feel many new adventures are on the way. Jackie and I will celebrate 50 years of marriage next summer and we hope to go to England in honor of that event. Then the next year we plan on going to Europe for a visit and then who knows the sky is the limit. Well also the pocket book.

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me. Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday to me.