October 5th, 2024 – My 55th birthday.

This is the fourteenth entry in my series of annual birthday reflections. Something I started doing shortly after I began my writing journey in the fall of 2011. As I sit here now, drinking coffee on this beautiful fall Saturday morning, it’s hard to believe that I’m exactly half-way through my fifties.

It seems like it was only yesterday I was the youthful teenager driving my pals around in a beat-up 1973 Toyota station wagon, hauling my guitar to lesson every week, going to the Palmer Park Mall on Friday nights after school, pouring millions of dollars worth of quarters from summer lawn mowing money into video game cabinets, having my fill of Orange Julius and wishing I could somehow muster up the courage to go over and talk to the cute girl who was standing with her friends outside of the Listening Booth record store. 

Wasn’t I the one who was able to go to rock concerts and stay up until the wee hours of the morning? Sitting in some dingy downtown diner deep into the night; chain smoking cigarettes, eating french fries smothered in imitation cheese sauce and drinking gallons of coffee. Talking with my friends about our plans to take on the world and make all of our dreams come true. And who could possibly forget singing ̶h̶o̶r̶r̶i̶f̶i̶c̶ beautiful three-part acapella versions of Eagles songs in the parking lot until 2 a.m. until we finally called it a night. Then to get home and lay there alone in the dark, listening to the whirring sound of a portable fan and feeling excited about the possibility of everything we’d just talked about coming true, before finally drifting off to sleep. These days, I’m lucky if I can stay up past 10 p.m.

There’s an odd sense of immortality you have when you’re young that makes you believe time will always stand still. One that pulls you close and then whispers in your ear, telling you that you’ll never be as old as your parents. But then one day you take a nap and unknowingly wake up in their role and realize your parents are gone and time waits for no one. 

To give you some perspective, my father died twenty-seven years ago this month at the age of 51. As of today, my birthday, I’ve outlived him by four years. My mother died in March of 2020, almost five years ago. This year, one of the friends who made those many coffee and cheese fry runs with me has been gone for ten years, and I recently heard the news about another classmate I knew quite well who had passed away unexpectedly.

A few years ago I stumbled upon my Easton Area Middle School student ID card. It was hiding beneath a pile of old knick knacks and memories in the crawl space of my basement. Why I decided to keep it all these years I’ll never know, but seeing it reminded me of the day the teacher handed them out in the fall of 1980. It was the first time I ever received a photo identification card of any kind, and although I didn’t much care for my fresh-faced goofy grin photo on the front, there was something printed on the back of the now worn, laminated card that had immediately caught my attention.

There among my bus route and home room numbers were the words, “YR GRAD-87.” It was the first time I saw the year of my future high school graduation (1987) and the first time I believed it was so very far away. To this shy eleven-year-old boy, seven years seemed like an eternity. The very idea of a youthful me not only seeing the year 1987 but eventually living in the year 2000 and beyond was the equivalent of having a starring role in The Jetsons or a Star Wars movie. It was inconceivable for me to even comprehend living in the space age. My parents were both very much alive at the time as well as both sets of grandparents and all of my classmates and friends. I didn’t have a job, or any roles and responsibilities for that matter, and the only things I looked forward to back in 1980 was Pizza Friday at school, my birthday, Christmas and summer vacation. As far as I was concerned, seven years away could’ve been seven hundred. 

Fast forward and here I am now, sitting on a couch with a scruffy gray beard and a bit thick in the middle, celebrating the double nickel birthday thirty-seven years post high school and twenty-four years beyond the year 2000. It’s mind boggling to think that we’re almost 25% of the way through another century. Back in 1980, I thought I had all the time I’d ever need, and now I often find myself feeling the urge to make the most of the time I have left. 

As many of you know, I suffered a bimalleolar ankle fracture back in February. It was the first time I had ever broken a bone in my life and had to have surgery. One of the worst and scariest things to ever happen to me. I was laid up for what felt like an eternity, so when the doctor finally looked at the x-ray of my healed bones weeks later and told me to get up and walk, the emotion I felt was almost Biblical. I’m so grateful to be back walking, although my ankle does make a point of reminding me nearly every day about what happened. The doctor said it will probably take up to a year before things get back to “normal,” whatever that is. I’m thankful for everyone who took the time to wish me well, bring me over a coffee or mow the lawn while I was laid up in the cast and boot. As a side note I will say that, in addition to the wheel and central air conditioning, the knee scooter is one of the greatest things ever invented by man.

Now that I’m back on two feet let’s finish this birthday post by talking about what’s going on now, in the present day. In addition to continuing to do interviews—hopefully, you’ve read a few of them over the years, I’m still writing and doing watercolor painting. Both of which have been great forms of stress relief. 

I think I may celebrate this day by spending some time at an old-school arcade in Allentown. One targeted to Generation X that still has all of the retro game cabinets. There’s no need to drop quarters into the machines anymore – it’s pay one price for unlimited play, which is a good thing considering I’ve been out of practice for the last forty years. And while I’m being annihilated by the invaders of Galaga and Zaxxon, I’ll reminisce about my friends who’ve moved on as well as the coffee and cheese fries—especially now that I’m eligible for the 55+ discount menu! I’ll also think about the plans and dreams we made that came true, and the ones still left to find.

In the meantime, I hope this day and my next trip around the sun brings all of us a newfound sense of hope, peace and most of all, love. 

Jim