Thursday, June 21, 2012

Will You Still Need me, Will You Still Read Me When I'm 64?


For three birthdays in a row (59th, 60th, 61st), I posted a birthday blog.  I enjoyed it--sharing a photo or a poem and telling what I was up to.  The 59th was all about moving to Danville and Linda and me starting our retired life here near Lillian.  The 60th was about publishing my book Lightning and Ashes and finishing my first novel.  The 61st was about Luciana's birth and what that meant to me.

I didn't write one for my 62nd birthday.  That's the year where I had my open heart surgery a few weeks before I turned 62.  I didn't feel much like writing about that birthday and what it meant to me.  I had written a lot in the previous couple of months about my heart troubles and didn't feel like writing after the surgery.  It's not hard to explain.  My mind was focused on my heart, what it had gone through, the pain I still felt, the weakness that kept me sitting in a recliner for much of each day.

On my 63rd birthday, I felt better of course, but writing about it didn't seem right.  Maybe I didn't want to press my luck, hooting about how good I felt.  Maybe I was still hearing the advice my mom gave me when I was a kid: It was bad luck to let the world know you were doing okay. Anyway, I didn't write about it, and didn't feel guilty about it, so maybe not blogging about it was the right thing.

So why am I writing now?  Telling you about my 64th birthday?

I'm not sure.  When you get to be 64, you get a little fuzzy headed.

________________________________

The above photo -- going from your right -- is of Lillian Calendrillo Guzlowski (33), Mabel Calendrillo (87), Tony Calendrillo (87), Linda Calendrillo (60), Luciana Calendrillo Guzlowski (3), and me (64).

If you want to read my previous birthday posts and see the photos, click on each of the following: 59, 60, 61.


8 comments:

Bruce K said...

Where's Vera, Chuck & Dave?

Happy Birthday, John!

John Guzlowski said...

I think they moved to Texas, old friend.

ksf said...

Happy Birthday, John. Great photo, and a lovely way to celebrate 64!

ksf said...

Happy birthday,John. A great photo, and a lovely way to celebrate 64!

Sue Knight's Blog said...

Lovely photo John. I don't celebrate birthdays myself (for religious reasons) but I am very glad you have made it successfully through another year. Doesn't life get more and more interesting? And how short it is. Please remember we were created to live forever - right here on the earth. And that is what i am hoping for - "unnumbered springs" in the restored earthly Paradise - to "inherit the earth", as Jesus promised. I hope you will all be there too. If so we can look back in amazement at how young 64 years old was!

Bruce and Victoria said...

One more year until Medicare, John!! So, keep going!!

Great picture--nothing could be a better present than all those smiles.

Hugs--Bruce and Victoria

Jane said...

A very happy birthday to you, John!

Urkat said...

Oft am I by the women told,
"Poor Anacreon! thou grow'st old;
Look! How thy hairs are falling all;
Poor Anacreon, how they fall!"
Whether I grow old or no,
by the effects I do not know;
but this I know, without being told, 'Tis time to live, if I grow old;
'Tis time short pleasures now to take,
Of little life the best to make,
and manage wisely the last stake."