When I was seventeen.....

It was a very good year…. It really was… I worked, I played, and I ran.. As this, the culmination of my 53rd year on the planet is today – it’s time for perhaps reflections…

It was a very good year
It was a very good year for small town girls
And soft summer nights
We'd hide from the lights
On the village green
When I was seventeen

Tis’ funny life’s lessons one learn just from listening.. Buddy o’ mine here at work… 73.. he quit smoking a short while back.. his wife, approximately the same age – still chain smoking – oxygen tank by her side 24/7.. “It makes me sick to watch her smoke.” I know I know, one day I will..

When I was thirty-five
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for blue-blooded girls
Of independent means
We'd ride in limousines
Their chauffeurs would drive
When I was thirty-five


From one bar stool to the next – friend tells me “yeah.. my wife died in ’95… I hooked up with a widow who’d lost her husband in ’89… He was a great guy, but the kinda guy that lived all his life tied to his job.. overtime.. weekend work… the old “jump” – “how high?” school of thought.. Anyways, I took the gal to Hawaii.. you shoulda seen her face.. She’d never traveled in her entire life.”

From Buck O’Neil, God rest his soul, commenting about not getting into the Major Leagues or the Hall of Fame: “"There is nothing greater for a human being than to get his body to react to all the things one does on a ballfield. It's as good as sex; it's as good as music. It fills you up. Waste no tears for me. I didn't come along too early -- I was right on time. You see, I don't have a bitter story. I truly believe I have been blessed."

Then there was the lady occupying "first base" the other night at the blackjack table.. In the very long hour I spent with her, I heard "It's cold in here" .. "I always get 16"... "I never get 20"... "Why do you (fella to my left) keep switching from playing one hand to two?".. "Where's the waitress, she's hasn't been here in a decade".. I really think, if she were in mid-orgasm it would be with frown.

Life – it appears, is a bit like clay. We can choose to sit around – dry up and crumble.. or, we can bend it, shape it, mold it, anyway we want it… Life’s a reaction.. Life’s a selection… Life is truly wonderful.. if we allow it to be..

When I was 53… It was a very good year…

But now the days grow short
I'm in the autumn of the year
And now I think of my life as vintage wine
From fine old kegs
From the brim to the dregs
And it poured sweet and clear
It was a very good year

It was a mess of good years

So, bad pun perhaps intended, I’m just being Frank with you… Happy day… Love, Victurd