‘That ‘70s Show’ or

‘Back to the Future’?

They say it’s just a number, this thing called age. You’re only as old as you feel, say some. Age is relative, say still others. But this week, like sands through the hour glass, so are the days of my life, as I entered willingly and, I must say, happily into my eighth decade. Yep, it’s the start of “That ‘70’s Show” for this kid.

What the WHAT? you may be saying. How can it be so? Why that doesn’t look a day over 69! But as sure as the hair on my back keeps getting longer, I have made it to “The Big 7-0.”

And so the common advice given to a person of this certain age is ‘don’t look back.’ That rearview mirror is small for the same reason that the windshield is big… look forward to the future, you can’t change the past. It’s over, as Ferris Buehler so profoundly told us.

Yeah, all true. Still, as this day has approached, I have been reflecting upon my decade in the bygone ‘70s, the one that carried with it so many significant changes.

It was 1970. Made the UMSL soccer team, kind of a dream for me, to play college ball. There, I met guys who would be my friends for life. Graduation, gotta get a real job, not one of those dozen-or-so part-time gigs that carried me through school, from raking leaves at an apartment complex to stocking a wholesale florist shelves to the lofty title of ‘bottle/bag/cart boy’ at the local Schnucks.

However, with a less-than-stellar 2.4 GPA in my major, I was anything but a primo recruit for the business world. My first real-life grown-up job was at a state institution for people who at the time were called ‘the retarded’. And the rest is history, as I fell in love with the work, and the people, and made it a career.

Less than a year later, along came ‘The Smile’, it belonging to the young woman who was to become the love of my life. In short order, we engaged, married and jumped on the fast-track of parenthood with 4 little rugrats in 7 years.

So it went from totally irresponsible college kid to husband/father/teacher at warp speed. It was, inarguably, one of my greatest periods of life-metamorphisis, second only to my first few years of walking-talking-eating-pooping on my own.

Today, as another “70’s” decade sets up before me, I see as I look in that rearview mirror just how blessed I have been.

And I have no reason to doubt that trend will continue. However, nature being what it is, I can also expect trials. The human being is created with a built-in obsolescence. Some make it well-past their warranty, others deteriorate at an alarming rate. Some, so sadly, move on, well before their time. And, oh, how we profoundly we grieve them.

What shall be the course of my future days? I know not. On one hand, it can be a scary prospect. On the other, I hope to be the guy looking forward, through that vast windshield, confident that I can still take that occasional glance in the rearview, and it will always be good.

Thus, it’s with this view that I say ‘Welcome… welcome to whatever lies ahead.”

Let’s find out what adventures this new version of “That ‘70’s Show” may yield.

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