Double Nickels

by Darin Lowery

I just had a birthday- um, YAY- and I’ve now hit fifty-five. Double Nickels. That’s me: mid-life, middle-aged, teetering towards my twilight years. Because I came into this world in 1955, they tell me it’s my ‘Golden Birthday’. It’s just a number. Go figure.

It is not just a number. It is a culmination of all of the numbers which have brought me to this point, which is, like, kinda old. I don’t feel old, and a few of my nicer friends and co-workers have said I still look okay and don’t smell like an old guy.

That’s a relief, I guess.

One gentleman I vaguely know asked, ‘what’re ya bitchin’ ‘bout?’ because he assumed I was complaining, when in fact the opposite is true. This birthday has me in awe. I’m rejoicing. I never expected to live this long.

As Mark Twain so famously said, ‘If I knew this, I probably would’ve taken better care of myself’.

Thirty-five years of smoking, ten years of hardcore drinking, and enough Big Macs in my teens to assure at least five heart attacks before I hit fifty-six. Silly, stupid behavior which I could share but won’t. My good drinking buddies- strangers, mostly, rotated between prison and welfare. There were run-ins with the Law myself, though nothing as interesting as insider trading or heroin smuggling. My infractions were primarily D&D (drunk and disorderly) and once, ‘running an illegal house’ (for a brief moment in Chicago history, off-track betting was legal and I had the misfortune to work the back of a betting parlor as a bartender).

On top of that, half the guys I knew in the Seventies & Eighties died due to HIV/AIDS. We went to so many funerals, sometimes I’d forget who I was mourning.

I’m still here, as someone said, and the way I figure, as long as I’m taking up space on the planet it only makes sense to use it wisely. This finally happened in 2000 when I moved to Globe.

I finally slowed down and began to take a look at what’s important.

And I found the answers somewhat quickly: hard work, and other people.

In the grand scheme of things- the flood of oil onto our Gulf beaches, the fact that Rush Limbaugh even has a job let alone an audience, and the fact that NOT A SINGLE PERSON in Globe uses a turn signal- well, my birthday isn’t news.

What I try to remember is how many people are not here anymore, despite the fact that most of them weren’t ready to die. Lung cancer took my Mom at 61- my Dad died of cirrhosis at 53, and my first partner, a great guy named John, died from HIV/AIDS at the age of 34. It satisfies me to not only carry on, but to do so with gusto and aplomb and a very deep feeling of gratitude. And maybe a belief that we really are here for a reason, and those reasons are spelled out in the minutiae of daily work, relationships and quiet time.

‘Double Nickels’ is a great age so far, and I hope the next fifty-five years finds me learning and sharing and listening more. I also hope to find myself in a really nice retirement community, because at 110 years old I’ll need all the care I can get.