I woke up still not dead again today.—Willie Nelson

Me, too.

Surprised? Not exactly, but I did just turn 80, roughly three and a half years beyond the life expectancy for U.S. males. And it has been true for quite some time that I am too old to die young.

Can’t say I have any wisdom to offer at this point, except to cite a quote I saw somewhere that “life is full of pleasant surprises.” And this is another one.

Turning 80 has been described as “a profound milestone” on the way to the oldest stage of life, though I can’t say it feels much different than being 79 or 78. (Just not the same—in several physical and mental ways—as, say, 58.) But I was moved to re-read a couple of brilliant essays regarding advanced age. One was published a few months ago by Roger Rosenblatt—he’s 86—in which he offered a list of “rules for the elderly, the aim of which is to keep us elderly elderly, and not to see us go one step further.”

He advised that a “key word to a lot of one’s behavior is ‘don’t.’” Including “Don’t question everything you don’t understand” and “Don’t seek immortality;” “Don’t share despair.”

There was a “do” in there, too; “Marry above your station” which, as he noted parenthetically, “You’ve probably found that out already.”

In fact, it was one of my first discoveries. Another was sliding very early into a vocation—newspaper sports reporter—that never felt like real work. Met people. Learned stuff. Witnessed little bits of history. Traveled the world.

Instead of things going amok

Experiences were gold being struck

Family and friends

And never loose ends

Some people have all the luck.

When he was 93, Roger Angell, best known for writing about sports—and especially baseball—detailed in a 2014 piece for The New Yorker, “This Old Man,” his increasing physical limitations while reflecting on the death of so many people close to him and noting the virtual invisibility of the elderly. But he also zeroed in on so many bright spots: Enjoyment of poetry, humor, music, cherished memories, and an enduring capacity for happiness and physical intimacy.

Angell lived to 101. I am aware that plenty of people are older than myself and still functioning quite well. Although, as the aging baseball character Casey Stengel noticed late in his life, on the way to 85, “Most of the people my age are dead at the present time.”

What is “old,” anyway? In Ernest Hemingway’s acclaimed short story, “The Old Man and Sea,” the exact age of the protagonist Santiago—“an old man whose hands are scarred and whose best days are physically behind him,” is never specified. Hemingway himself was a mere 53 when he wrote that.

As long as I continue plodding through a morning run, dabbling with my Substack newsletter—I’m going to keep writing stuff until I finally get it right—attending to such minor domestic duties of mowing the lawn, enjoying the countless benefits of an ideal, nearly 54-year marriage, it’s difficult even to think of any “the end is near” premonitions.

My wife and I just spent a terrific 80^th-birthday celebratory week in Texas with my brother, his extended family, with the special bonus being joined by our daughter, son-in-law and lively 6-year-old grandson—a lad of eclectic skills and interests; he takes after his mum—from their London home. That included a video appearance by my older sister from Missouri. Among the parties and dinners, Texas state capital tours and riverboat rides and pre-Halloween pumpkin carvings, there was an afternoon of miniature golf. One extended recess.

Come to think of it, I’m not entirely sure I even consider myself a grown-up.

So.

Still feeling as fit as a fiddle

Though expecting at one point it’ll

Go a bit out of tune

And could be quite soon

But this is no time to twiddle

 

I subscribe to the outlook of humorist Garrison Keillor—he’s 84 and still working—who prioritizes “cheerfulness,” an appreciation in spite of some setbacks of all the good experiences and good relationships. And then there is my relentless dumb luck. The medical profession has come to my rescue repeatedly, including the surgical removal of a benign brain tumor 23 years ago and valve-replacement surgery seven years ago (with another valve job now in the near future). Good doctors are a great invention.

The unpredictability of human frailty is obvious. There are no answers. Though there are some obvious recommendations to increase lifespan—get exercise (physically and mentally), eat a healthy diet, watch your weight, don’t smoke, drink moderately, don’t skip medical checkups—I’ll bet you can think of people who practiced all of that and still were bushwacked by a fatal disease or an unforeseen accident. (My parents, at 50 and 46, died in a small plane crash, with my 16-year-old sister.)

Somebody once said that comparative happiness is immoral, so not only does news of the demise of a friend, family member or colleague hit closer to home, but it also stirs some discomfort in the relative knowledge that I’m feeling fine. The “why me/why not me” dichotomy.

It’s as simple as this: I woke up still not dead again today. Which made me think of how a former colleague, New York Times sports columnist Dave Anderson—one of so many journalism heroes—regularly signed off after submitting another of his insightful reports.

Fooled ‘em again.