Not Dark Yet

Exploring the caves beneath Osimo, Italy, Sept. 2018
Seventy-three is a most unremarkable age. It’s down there with 15 and 31 and 59 and all the other minions of birthdays that can only look up at the royal family of birthdays: 1, 16, 18, 21, 30, 40, 50, 60, 62, 65, 70, 75…100. As I’ve written here before I set my 75th birthday as somewhat of a morbid goal for myself after learning that my literary hero Mark Twain predicted he would die at 75…and, by God, he did. I’m not quite there as I turn 73 today, which seems a good time to reconsider that goal. At a certain age, you can’t help but think about mortality…that age for me was 70. Ever since, I’ve been noticing deaths just behind me and deaths just ahead. Oddly…and most unscientifically…and probably most improbably...people seem to die less at 73 than they do between 68 and 72 and 74 and beyond. As I peruse the obits the New York Times sticks in my email each morning, I’ve become somewhat aware that not many people die at 73…not many famous people at least. Seventy-three seems a bit like a log you land on temporarily as the River Styx rushes forward, carrying you along to your final destination. I could be wrong about this, but things happening to me leading up to my 73rd birthday make me feel that it’s not dark yet.The first of those things happened last June when Lorna and I discovered electric bikes…and suddenly out of nowhere I had something fast (14.5 mph!) and invigorating to replace my lifelong passion for softball and get me out of the house for some serious exercise. I knew it never was going to be golf…not unless they changed the rules to allow me to shag tee shots with my baseball mitt out on the fairway.  The next is this all there is rebuttal came from Monty Don’s televised garden tours of Italy. When we returned from our most recent trip to Italy for our 50th wedding anniversary celebration, Lorna and I both had the distinct feeling that as glorious a trip as it had been it was probably our last to our favorite foreign country. Between the airlines’ nickel and dime policies and TSA’s intrusiveness air travel has become unremittingly awful. Besides, we still owed my father’s ancestral homeland a visit and knew if we were to rally for another trip abroad, we would be Ireland bound. But then in four breathtaking, hour-long episodes, Monty Don opened our eyes to Italian sights we’d never even imagined, let alone seen. By the time the series was over we were at work on the itinerary for our next Italian journey.    The kubodai...not dark yet until the Mrs. becomes a Mr.Then a week ago we started watching Blue Planet ll on Netflix. It started with the tusk fish that goes hunting for crab. After finding one, it brings it back to its workshop and proceeds to crack open the shell against a rock to get at the meat inside. So, a tool-using fish! The amazement of that was immediately transcended by our introduction to the kobudai fish. When a female kobudai gets over 10 years old, certain of her enzymes stop working and male hormones start to develop. She goes into months' long isolation until she turns into a male kobudai and is ready to challenge the alpha male, her former mate, for dominance over his harem And so, a transgender fish! And finally an aggressive school of false killer whales (actually dolphins) is in hot pursuit of a school of bottlenose dolphins when the bottlenoses abruptly stop, turn on their hunters, and start to negotiate in those wacky dolphin voices. Before you know it, the two groups are cooperating and hunting together. It’s a deep sea Kumbaya! It gives me pause: how many other such wonders of the world still await my discovery? Finally, this past Saturday we were on Facetime with grandson Remy, who was celebrating his more momentous first birthday. In the midst of it…with Remy grabbing nonstop for the phone and Gillian trying to keep the call coherent…she called out for Remy’s two-year old brother, “Hey, Nico, wanna come say hi to gram and gramps?”“Not yet,” Nico hollered back.Ha! We all roared with laughter at the innocent irreverence of it...not yet. I get it. I can wait, Nico. It’s not dark yet.      Order here