It's my birthday today. I thought of myself as old when I was six and again at twenty five. When I turned forty I wondered how I could still stand upright. Now, I do a lot of the things I did at twenty, but for shorter times with slower movements. I enjoy dancing, water skiing, reading, swimming, working on projects, and riding motorcycles. Things haven't changed that much.
In this century they celebrate hundred year old people with Smucker ads and internet news articles. There are parties for fifty years of marriage.
I wonder what happened to us from way back when. Methuselah was not the only living person to creep up on a thousand years of age. Adam lived nine-hundred and thirty years. Noah, the guy that spent all that time building the biggest houseboat ever, lived for nine-hundred and fifty years. Noah had children when he was in his five-hundred plus years. The Bible gives us this history, but doesn't tell us anything about how long their wives lived. In this day women outlive men. So, I assume  the wives were all a thousand years old well after their husbands died.
In that time people did not die of heart attacks, cancer, or strokes. They had to be killed. It wasn't until much later that disease and plagues were indulged in.
The human body must have the capacity to live eight or nine-hundred years. I will feel lucky if I make it to social security age, of course by then they will raise the age to seventy-five and I will still be chasing it.
Oh well, happy birthday!

I received something in the mail the other day that I wasn't too sure about. No, it wasn't a four color ad or a two page local newspaper. it wasn't a bill or a  deceiving tri-folded advertisement stating you may have won something worth thousands or open immediately. This was a white rectangular envelope with our name and address written in good script by hand with a real stamp instead of those machine mailings. the stamp was a flag with Liberty written below. I wasn't sure whether to toss it in the to be paid file or the plastic lined container file on the floor beside me.  I did an adventurous thing. I opened it up.
 I hadn't seen one of these in years. it was an actual letter, that ancient device before LMAO, JK and TU became commonplace.
I opened the envelope slowly pulling out the handwritten note hidden inside as though the gods themselves had sent it to me. I giggled like an inebriated teen as I read the Pilot pen on paper words. It said "Thank you, for" . . . and had two signatures at the end. Two separate signatures by two different people. I had to stop my heart from it's path of rapid beating.
I wasn't sure whether to frame this wondrous thing of the past or scan it and e-mail it to people. I think I'll just reply to the letter with a text.