Today I am seventy.

I didn't set out to be seventy. It was not a long-standing goal, something on my list of things to do. It just happened. Yesterday I was in my late sixties and today I am in my seventies. I'm a little surprised, to be truthful. It's not that I mind being seventy;  I consider this period of my life to be among the very best I've experienced. But being seventy sets a certain road mark, a personal Rubicon, if you will. A boundary that, once crossed, tends to be more defining than I might like.

At age seventy you acknowledge full well what you have known for some time; that you are not going to be an industrial tycoon, you are not going to find the cure for cancer, you are not going to speak seven languages including Pashto, you are not going to live next to Paradise Falls, and you are not going to write the Great American Novel. Great American Blog, maybe, but the novel is out.

In my youth I entertained thoughts that I might be a famous movie star. Or front a rock and roll band (okay, that thought still crosses my mind). Or be a famous singer. I had no trouble picturing myself trekking to base camp at Everest. Summers in Colorado, winters in Arizona. Maybe life as an ex-pat somewhere like the Czech Republic - when I'm not on the Riviera. Oh, there's a long list unchecked.

Instead, I have become a curmudgeon that treasures - almost above all else - staying at home, venturing out no further than Chuy's, Rudy's, Fran's and the occasional excursion to Port A. I confess I'm torn about trips to see the grand-kids; love the visits, hate the travel.

My parents lived into their nineties. I have no such expectation, so at age seventy, I now begin to look through the other end of the telescope. You know, up until now you have looked in the big end and things are far, far away in the distance. At this age, you turn the thing around to its normal use and suddenly objects are closer than they appear. I can see borders, boundaries, edges, and limits. I see the ends of many things that I never thought had limits; indeed, I have passed some of those ends already and they recede behind me in the distance. Many I don't miss. Going to work is one of them. Mowing the lawn is another. I do wish my vision was better and that my hearing would stick around a while longer, though. And don't get me started about my mind. Where was I?

What once were cliches are now truths -

• For the first half of your life, people tell you what you should do; for the second half, they tell you what you should have done.
• Wisdom doesn't necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself.
• Old age comes at a bad time.
• The time to begin most things is ten years ago.
• To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am.
• If I'd known how old I was going to be I'd have taken better care of myself.
• In youth we run into difficulties; in old age difficulties run into us.
• The first half of life consists of the capacity to enjoy without the chance; the last half consists of the chance without the capacity.
• We get too soon old and too late smart.
• By the time we've made it, we've had it.
• At twenty we worry about what others think of us; at forty we don't care about what others think of us; beyond sixty we discover they haven't been thinking about us at all.

But I have no regrets now that I've achieved this dubious distinction. I have enjoyed the company of a loving companion for 49 of those years. Our children and grandchildren honor us with God-led lives. I've been places I never expected to be, seen things I never expected to see, and done things I've never expected to do.

By my count, I've passed through 53 different airports and visited 12 different countries. I've driven to all three coasts and as far north as Wyoming. I've been in 31 of the 48 states. I've walked the black beaches in El Salvador and gathered sea shells on the white sands of Captiva Island.

I've walked on a live volcano; I have reached the summit of 3 fourteen-thousand foot mountains (two of them on foot ). I've been swept down a Guatemalan river; I very nearly let my children sweep down the Perdenales River. I've visited ancient civilizations in four different countries. I've stood on top of the Empire State Building; I've been to ground zero. I've stood in a church (built in the 14th century) that was located on the spot where religious services have been conducted since 925. I have encountered God in a rough tent pitched in a cornfield.

I've met Elvis, Johnny Horton, Brenda Lee, Connie Francis, Peter Paul and Mary, Johnny Cash, Bryan Hyland, and Pat Boone. I was backstage during an Elvis concert and a PP&M concert. I have stayed up all night because I wanted to; I have stayed up all night because I had to. I have spent the night on the State Capitol grounds.

I have been a rodeo clown, a grocery store clerk, pumped gas when it was 16 cents a gallon, and worked construction. I've ridden a bicycle more than 5,000 miles delivering newspapers. I've been a disk jockey, a tape duplicator, a motion picture extra, a sound recorder, a salesman, a telephone survey-taker, a computer programmer and a systems analyst. 

I've encountered a Big Horn sheep up close and personal next door to the Garden of the Gods. I've encountered a black bear in a Yellowstone campground. I have bartered for hammocks in Chichicastenango and haggled for jewelry in Cuzco.

I've driven down Route 66 and across the Mojave desert. I've camped in Red River, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Mesa Verde, the Tetons, Bryce Canyon, Zion, Lake Mead, Mt. Capulan and many places that don't have names. I have been snowed on on the 4th of July. I have been wet before. I have seen Bald Eagles soar.

I've drunk milk from fresh coconuts in Central America,  I've drunk coffee boiled in a paper bag on a campfire beside a Texas stock tank. I've eaten escargot in Florida (tasted like snails). I rejected the offer of guinea pig in Peru. I've eaten some of the world's best BBQ.

Thinking about all that sort of makes me tired.  I think I'll go rest a bit before starting on the rest of the journey. Ya'll have a good day.