62 From 62

I like to tell everyone that Sean Connery first appeared as James Bond in Doctor No and, more importantly, the Beatles released their first single, Love Me Do/P.S. I Love You, on October 5th, 1962. One day later, my mother released her last single. Me.

...and my mother was likely saying, "Doctor! No!" through most of the three days of labour she dealt with, before dumping my ten-pound ass out of her body.

By the time I'm born, aside from James Bond and the Beatles, the world has also met the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, and Spider-Man. Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans had been seen, the Trans Canada Highway (at the time, the world's longest uninterrupted highway at about 4,650 mi or almost 7,500 km) had been completed. Marilyn Monroe was dead, Nelson Mandela was in prison, and JFK was shooting for the Moon. Of course, about a year later, someone would be shooting for him.

Johnny Carson had just become the new host of The Tonight Show and the rest of the month of October of that year would be taken up by the staring match of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Luckily, Khrushchev blinked first.

The world seem to be teetering on the edge of both hopeful optimism, and the prospect of complete annihilation.

That was 1962.

62 years later, the hopes and dreams and fears and threats have changed, but the knife edge has not dulled.

But, for the guy who came in in '62 and is now 62, it's been a hell of a ride.

Over the years, I've sorted lumber and mail. I've supplied customers with gas, fast food, beer, cameras, photocopies, and books. I've also helped with customer complaints, then hired, trained and managed others to do the same. I've created visual and written communications seen by thousands. I've taught others how to create them too. I've probably sat in on more than 5000 interviews, and over the course of 27 years, I likely had something like 1200 students pass through the various courses I taught at both Durham College and Trent University.

And through it all, I've read. A lot. From the time I learned to puzzle out these squiggles and understand that they made words, sentences, stories, worlds, I've never stopped.

And, somewhere along the way, I started using those words and sentences to build my own worlds.

In the last three decades of my life, I also found those that helped me build a world for us. My wife, my kids son and daughter, and their own eventual partners. My grandson. My friends.

There have been so many people that have contributed to where I am now, and in one way or another, I'm grateful to each of them.

Like everyone, I've experienced absolutely crushing lows, pain, and heartbreak, but also incredible highs, laughter, and love.

In the grand scheme of things, I think as long as the good outweighs the bad, as long as there's more tears of laughter than of pain, then I can count myself as a lucky man.

All of this is to say, I'm nothing special. I'm just a regular guy living an average life. When I was young, I wanted to be someone special, a household name, someone everyone would recognize on the street. I wanted to experience wonder.

In these past 62 years, having seen both the best and the worst that people can offer, I realize now that what I've always needed was, I think, what most of us need...stability, health, happiness, and love. We need to need others, and we need to be needed.

And, in this world, still balanced on that knife edge of hope and despair, I can say I've gotten what I've always needed.

I've cried more tears of laughter. I've experienced more hope.

And yes, I've experienced wonder.

Seriously, can anyone truly ask for any more than that? Today, as I turn 62, I can say truthfully that I am content.

Thank you to all that have got me to this point. But don't slow down yet, we still have a lot more wonder, hope, and laughter to experience.