I have heard friends say, indeed I have said my myself, "It's a shame youth is wasted on the young. That's not really true you know. Actually, being young is where you make many mistakes which will make old age easier to accept. That is why I wrote the following.

I shared a poem I wrote inspired by and including some of the wisdom of the immortal Will Rogers. I am going to start this article with another of his great wise-cracks.

“One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it is such a nice change from being young.”

He has a point. When I was a kid my parents could be real tyrants. Actually it was my Mom. I look back and realize that she was not such a tyrant. She was a mother. She worried about us if we were out somewhere and she didn’t know we were okay.

Often my brother and I would come home to find Mom standing there with that look on her face. You know the one I mean. Those looks which cut through you and makes your blood run cold.

Her anger was generated by the fact that we had gone to other side of town and we were supposed to be home two hours ago and she was scared that something had happened to us. All we knew was that we were in the dog house again.

I spent the better part of my childhood, especially once I became a teenager, wishing I were grown up. There would be no one to tell me what to do, where to be or when to be there. HA! That was a cruel joke that Lew perpetrated upon himself.

When I got out of school I joined the Army. Was I on my own? I can only say if I thought my mother was a tyrant this proved her to be gentle as a lamb. My stay in the Army was short lived due to physical problems. I came stumbling up the stairs to the apartment where my parents lived on Christmas Eve with my duffle bag and my discharge papers.

I spent the next two years in and out of the hospital. Once I got out of the hospital I got some help from the state government and was retrained. I became a disc jockey and eventually went into radio advertising as sales manager.

Without making a long story even longer I found out that when I grew up I would have people telling what to do and where to be… and when to be there. So much for childhood dreams.

Now I am sixty-one. I have been retired for twenty-one years due to a heart condition. Now my heart is the dictator. I want to tell you this; if I disobey my heart will make me pay.

Another of Will Rogers quotes is as follows: “Being young is beautiful, but being old is comfortable. Well I can pace myself. I have learned to live within the confines of what my body will allow and I still can keep a youthful attitude toward life.
I think I keep some of them in some ways even more so than when I was a teenager. Now I live every day to the most. Now I appreciate every breath I take. I watch the sky in wonder as the clouds form and dispel and reform again after giving a beautiful view of the sky so blue.

I am grateful for my kids, I love my grand children and I savor life. As a kid I was too busy wishing for something better. Now I realize that in spite of any difficulties my life has given me eyes to see the glory of God. What more could I ask for?