Yes, it’s true. I was born on September 20, 1948. Which means that today I reach the big six-oh. I know, I know, sixty is the new forty. Somehow it still feels like the old sixty. Dare I eat a peach?

“It beats the alternative,” I hear people saying. People always say that when one complains about aging and its indignities. These people lack imagination, I say. Clearly they can’t be science fiction and fantasy fans. The only way getting old beats the alternative is if the alternative is dying… but after a lifetime of reading SF, I yearn for other alternatives, like eternal youth and health.

Inside, at least, I don’t feel all that different than I did at twenty-five. Yesterday I was a young turk, today I seem to have become a grey eminence. That has its good points, of course. But so did being twenty-five.

Ah, well. I shouldn’t complain. It’s been an interesting ride so far, and I am hoping to continue for another sixty years at least. I’ve got my health, I’m financially secure, I love my work, I have more readers than I ever dreamed of having, I have great friends both old and new… and of course I have Parris. (I love you, honey). I’m a lucky guy. Hell, the Giants even won the Superbowl.

And now that I’m sixty, I am legally entitled to be a Cranky Old Phart. I’ve buying myself a cane to shake at people, and learning how to growl, “Hey, you kids, get out of my yard!”

Current Mood: null