I was born seventy-five years ago today In St. Louis, Missouri, three hundred miles to the south-southwest. That’s not much movement for three-quarters of a century, but I didn’t quite sail the rhumb line to get here.
I have been looking forward to becoming seventy-five. The number is something out of science fiction. That I, who risked everything for so long, have become old is a cosmic joke, and as you can see in the photo below, I’m laughing.
If you are wondering, yes, I’ve done my new age in push-ups. Actually I did 155 push-ups and crunches in sets of 75-40-40 along with other exercises this morning, shortly after Carol took the two photos.
The three heads in the one above was her concept. Me now, my shadow looking back at me as I was in a drawing made by the French magazine, VOILES ET VOILIERS, almost forty years ago based on a photo taken in 1975.
During some of the sailing on GANNET this year, conditions were atrocious. I was constantly wet and in pain. I deliberately sought to move my mind somewhere else and chose to think about this day, spending it quietly with Carol.
The day is as I imagined.
We will walk down to the lake this afternoon. Dinner here with what I hope is an exceptional bottle of wine. Followed, of course, by Laphroaig.
To paraphrase myself:
Smile, old man, and sail on.
