For a fellow who today is officially one year away from being a half-century old I'm feeling pretty good in spite of the increasingly creaky joints and graying hair. 

I may not be rich or famous but that doesn't matter to me. I've got a family that loves me (even if they occasionally have trouble tolerating me); I've got friends who seem to accept me as I am and whose kinship means a great deal to me; I've managed to have the career I wanted when I was a kid, and have been relatively successful at it besides; and I have, on occasion, been able to strike a blow for those causes that are important to me. 

Those things make me a very wealthy man indeed, regardless of what my bank balance might say. So who's complaining?

That said, I do have to share a poem that just popped into my head while talking with my wife this morning before I came to work. She got a good laugh out of it when I recited it out of the blue, so I thought I'd post it here as well...

 

A POEM COMPOSED ON 

THE OCCASION OF THE 49TH 

ANNIVERSARY OF MY BIRTH


Happy birthday to me...

Another gray hair I see.

My joints sound like Rice Krispies

And I always gotta wee.