The older I get the more I realize what I dumbass I was as a youngster.

For example … I think I was about 16 years of age or so when I disclosed to someone — it might’ve been my parents — that I didn’t want to live past the age of 55. That was old enough, I thought in that moment. Indeed, my family elders who were 55 years of age seemed like dinosaurs to me.

I carried that thought with me for a while. Until I realized, maybe it was in the Army — which I would join not long after sharing that brainless “thought” — when I realized that people had a lot of living to do once they hit 55 years of age.

Here I am in the present day. I am now 73 years of age. I am feeling pretty good. Only have a few aches and pains in the morning when I awake. I stretch ‘em out and then I am good to go.

My wife’s recent passing from cancer — at the age of 71 — also reinforced my desire to remain on this good Earth for as long as possible. Kathy Anne would want me to continue to enjoy life and live it to the fullest. I am not yet close to that level of recovery from her passing, but I am getting a bit closer to it each day. At least I believe that’s happening.

The older I get, the wiser I become. I do not consider myself to be “wise,” just “wiser” than I was as a brainless teenager.