I was born on August 11, 1949, seventy-seven years ago. It is an improbable length of time, given my decades of physical and mental abuse. The greatest advantage of living so long is simply being alive, a daily win in the epidemiological lottery.

A smaller advantage, thanks wholly to our current digitized world, is the proliferation, albeit decreasing with the years, of salutations and well-meant birthday wishes. For all of them, I can say with unfettered honesty, I am grateful. Each of you, regardless or the hastiness of your click, represent a part of my life, eras for some, moments for others.

I must note, though, that the chronological calendar categorizes each or you, sorting you into buckets – colleague, friend, ex-something or other, etc. Here is how that works:

Over these seven-plus decades, I have, for the most part, lived a life of attentive industry, a striver. you might say, trying against the odds of nature and nurture to improve not only my own lot, but also those of some few others within my capacity – in short, to be a good person and be a good man (the latter, it turns out, is more difficult).

However, as some of you well know, my periods of attentive industry alternated with equally persistent passages of unrepentant profligacy. For the latter, no names are needed. Those who know, know.

What this means is simple: Some of my well-wishers align with the years of industry, some with the raves of profligacy, and a special few of you – again, no names – with both. Those few and I bear the same scars. As I am marked, so are you.

So, once more, I thank you – for the long life, for the intensity (industrious and profligate) and, most of all, for surviving with me into whatever the hell it is we are today.

Onward, amigos, onward, together we beat on, ceaselessly into the future.

***

A note on the photo:

Today, thrusting an upwardly-held French-fry in the faces of those cardiological naysayers, I lunched on a substantial sandwich and fries at the Depot Café in Mill Valley, here in Marin County.

Upon ordering, the counter-person, unaware of the significance of this day – my 77th birthday – handed me the above table number.

It can only mean one of two things: I’ve got a least another year or I’ll be gone by the weekend.