Why I Like Being 63

Once every great now & then, someone younger than me (of which there are MANY), will ask, "Do you wish you were 20 again?"

And I always answer with a resounding "NO!" Especially with the way things are now. And I really had a deep chance to ponder that all day long at the last carshow at Carl Miller Park.

As I was "California Dusting" Donna's pretty 442, I was watching hundreds of the younger set (teens, 20's & 30's), walking around some of them wide-eyed and amazed at the antique Fords, Chevys, etc......cameras clicking all over the park. To me, it wasn't THAT big of a deal, I guess because I'd grown up with these.

I couldn't help but to think....."when I went out the door to school, THIS is the same show I saw up & down the streets! EVERYBODY drove stuff like this! Because it WAS the FIFTIES!"

As the carshow went on, I thought back on how lucky and blessed I've been to have LIVED through that time frame. You know.....the "good old days really WERE."

We "baby boomers", who came into this world, usually somewhere between World War II and the Korean Conflict were sort of like the cream filling in an Oreo cookie. Our PARENTS had to deal with the First Depression....and unfortunately, our KIDS are gonna have to deal with this SECOND one we're slipping into. Oh sure, WE are starting to feel some of it. but when you're OUR AGE, FACE IT!----we've got a whole lot more days BEHIND us, than we have in FRONT of us.

I've occasionally written about my own special memories, which range from Roy Rogers to Wolfman Jack, but there's a lot of other things I like about being 63 today.

In school, we settled our differences with "bullies" at recess, or OUTSIDE the school grounds after school got OUT. We played dodgeball......and on the weekends we played "cops & robbers" or "Cowboys & Indians." For ME, that was around 1957 or so (give or take).

Now it is 2011. Kids that are "picked on, have never been taught to fight back, so when the peer pressure gets to be to much, they commit suicide instead.

In 2011, Dodgeball, cops & robbers, cowboys and indians "PROMOTE VIOLENCE", so now our litle "couch potatoes" blow each other up with video games....and instead of "sneaking up on the "sheriff's posse" with their cap pistols......they're sneaking a joint or some meth, that Mom & Dad don't know about. Left undiscovered, they are found DEAD in some alley from an overdose.

Dodgeball is "too violent."

Hard to find a television show today that ISN'T violent....DOESN'T have objective language, or doesn't promote pre-marital sex and even gay lifestyles as "OK-NORMAL."

GREAT role models for our kids & grandkids!

Spanking has virtually stopped. Lamont made mention on another blog the other day about our punishment system being "not much of a deterrent.".....well, maybe THAT has manifested ITSELF in today's modern homes of "reasoning & encounter groups", where an old-fashioned ping-pong paddle would have "nipped it in the bud."

Years later when their "child" is doing "5 to ten", or is in the morgue, these same parents either can't figure out "where they went wrong"......or they blame that "VILLAGE" for not raising their kids right for them.

We do NOT discipline our children as OUR parents did, and just take a hard look around at the lack of discipline, disrespect and back-talk, that is coming from it today.

I'm glad I'm 63.

I grew up poor. So did all of my friends on the "Hill", but I never met any other kid in the Potrero District, black, white, Mexican or Chinese, who felt like the whole stinking world "owed him something" just for being here. If you wanted something, it was up to YOU to make that happen. I packed a lot of paperbags full of groceries up flights of stairs for old people in our neighbor hood for a quarter, or sometimes even 50 cents.

This business of "demanding" toys at the store, and throwing a public tantrum if mom didn't "give-in"-----well, that just didn't FLY in OUR family, and if the OLD MAN had to get involved in something, you would RUE THE DAY, pardner!.....'cause the belt was coming off, you would get wailed in front of God and everybody........and NOBODY in that store would turn your dad in for "child abuse' because ALL parents back then were pretty much on the same page.

I don't know of anyone who ever died from an old-fashioned spanking. But the cemetaries are FULL of kids who never got spanked, and never made it through high school.

In 2011....spanking is "VIOLENT" as well. I'm glad I'm 63.

I am so blessed. When I was growing up, my folks APPROVED of what I saw at the movies and on tv. The guys in the "white hats" fighting to save the "rancher's herd", and there was always a MORAL to the story for us kids to try to emulate.

Yes.....if you read my early blogs, you know that I'd created some mischief MYSELF every now & then, but at my WORST, I wasn't out peddling dope or bashing in the head of some poor little old lady for her social security money. We were taught respect for the elderly.

Black kids, white kids and every OTHER ethnic of kids often had lunch at each other's homes, then went out and played some dirtlot baseball together. prejudice doesn't come naturally.........it is a LEARNED behavior. It has to be TAUGHT.

In our late teens, we weren't out there on the streets hoping to "score some drugs". We were out with our girlfriends somewhere just hoping to "score."

We cruised in big Bel Airs with the "Wolfman on the radio". Today they spurt around in Honda Civics with $5,000.00 worth of BOOM-BOOM THUMPING stereos, in a $500.00 car.

I'm glad to be 63. I pity our kids & grandkids though, who will tragically NEVER have what we had. Washington D.C. was respected and honored. Not hated, and ready to revolt against.

America was respected too. I'm almost embarassed to live here today....even though I have NOT changed nor lowered my personal standards to fit in with today's pinko society.

I'm still an American. A REAL one......and glad to be 63.

Because I don't just rollover and "accept" the continued degradation as if it was "normal", I'm often considered a radical and an outcast. That's fine...........don't like me or my attitude? DROP OFF, CLYDE!

At 63, I don't feel the need to be "polite" anymore, when dealing with nitwits.

I've had a good life. Poor but proud right from the beginning.

They didn't have to track me down and DRAFT me. I not only ENLISTED and served, but I did it the HARD way (and it doesn't get any harder than San Diego or Parris Island).

I'm a 50'd kid from Potrero Hill, I wasn't hiding someplace, looking for the coward's way out.

Had a good Air Force career too. The hours were always long and the overseas assignments not always what you wished they were, but my tenure was productive, and an honorable way to serve the country.

I've had a good 40 years in music as well.

I do not, and have NEVER believed that musical ability is something one is "born with". If that was the case, you'd never have to practice (and I'm gonna have a lot of "homework" after Tuesday's surgery). But I've had a good "music career". Played a lot of places over a lot of years, met a lot of people and made a few lifelong friends.

My car collection, gun collection and instrument collection weren't handed to me on a silver tray. I have WORKED for everything I have. That TOO is a part of being 63, and knowing that the world does NOT owe you a dime just for BEING here.

The only regret in life that I have, was Vietnam. I allowed myself to be caught up in the "John Wayne Hollywood realm" of actually going to war...then coming home victorious as our fathers and uncles did after World War II.....tickertape parades, all the girls there to meet 'em at the docks in Long Island as they got of the ships.......oh yeah....."Johnny comes marching home."

I spent 13 months in the jungles & swamps, killing people I had nothing against, for reasons that never existed. That's a sour note that will stay with me until the day I die........along with the Agent Orange.........

Getting my life straightened out with God.............SEVERAL years ago. Those who don't believe and choose to mock, can explain it later when they're standing before the throne. There'll be a few minutes before they're tossed into the pit.

I see it like this------if there IS no God, and I live an honest, decent life believing there IS......what's the worst that can happen?....I die, and somebody might put something nice on my headstone.

But I'd be scared to death to be an ATHEIST......just one big party down here...........then die and find out there IS a God! And if God is true, so is His word, and by His word, you accept Jesus as Lord & Savior BEFORE the end......after THAT, comes the judgement.

It doesn't cost me ANYTHING to believe. Might cost me EVERYTHING if I don't. That's ONE risk in this life I'm not willing to take. Y'all do what you want.

My wife, Donna............easily the greatest blessing I've had own here. Cars, yachts, mansions, fortunes............you can have everything there IS down here, but if you don't have that right person in your life.....you ain't got SQUAT!

Everything else is just "stuff". That's all it is, you aren't taking it with you when you die, either. My good friend and fellow musician Billy Pepper in Gilbert Arizona, sings a song called "You'll Never See a U-Haul, Pulled Behind a Hearse." And that song is "spot-on!" as they say.

Donna is the reason I get up in the morning, and just having her in my life makes me wanna do better each day. I'd be a dangerous driver in Boise, were she not in the car WITH me!

I have an "outside attitude" of this world and this country, in that my rights are "God given....not government-granted", and at 63, I do not feel the need to treat ANYONE ELSE down here as somebody more "special' than me.

Lamont has this thing of showing respect for titles, which is FINE. That's HIS way and we've talked about that. You've read it as well. I don't care if he's a senator, congressman, governor or the PRESIDENT. Human being to human being-----he's nothing special to ME. Puts his pants on one leg at a time.

A title doesn't make him "above the rest of us"---------WE HIRED him, for criminey sake. I have more respect for LAMONT than I do for the last 4 presidents. I don't always agree with LAMONT but at least he doesn't say ONE thing today, then try to tell you something different tomorrow. Whether you like him or not, or agree with him or not, he is straight up forward with you. Tells you what he thinks and what's in his heart.

Homer is the same way......straight up as HE sees it. Now, they go after each other from time to time and there are serious political differences. And that's ok. I get along good with BOTH of them, because while the conversation texts may differ.......whenever I'm talking with EITHER one of them......I don't feel like I'm talking to a facade. With either one of them....what you see is what you get. I admire and respect that. I do NOT respect at least 99% of D.C., including Obama. Respect never comes with a job. t is EARNED.

That's another thing about being 63..........you learn not to be WASTING time......because there's less and less of it with each passing day. Life is kind of like a roll of toilet paper............the closer you get to the end, the faster it seems to go!

But I woudn't be 20 again for ANYTHING!

Speaking of "time'......I need to jump in the shower and get to church so I can PLAY one more time before Tuesday.

Have a good one, y'all.

........and in March.....I'll be glad to be 64........and if I don't MAKE it to 64, it's still been just as good!