Half. A Fucking. CENTURY.

January 22, 1969.

The moon landing was about six months away.

The infamous rigged Super Bowl III was 10 days old.

We were in the middle of the Vietnam War.

Watergate was just a hotel.

The #1 song in the country was the classic "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" by Marvin Gaye.

And, at about 12 noon at St. Mary's Hospital in Rochester, MN, a boy was born a month premature.

Me.

I turn 50 years old today.

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And what a 50 years it has been...

The Immaculate Reception and probable rigging of the start of the Steelers' dynasty came just short of my fourth birthday.

The Reserve Clause of Major League Baseball lasted until I was six.

I remember being a fan of the "Purple People Eaters" and languishing over THEIR four Super Bowl losses as a young child.

The Four-Letter Network didn't start until past my tenth birthday...

I don't recall where I was for the "Miracle On Ice", but remember, 22 years later, being in Salt Lake City while the team lit the torch at the stadium to begin the Games of the Winter Olympiad.

We didn't believe we could fly, just because Nike told us who our sporting gods were.

Graduated #1 in my class in high school in 1987, then it all went to pot as far as schooling was concerned.  One expulsion and banishment and a second near-suspension, and it took nearly seven years to get a (now-invalid) Bachelor's Degree from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

Then, I traveled the highways and by-ways, getting more education out of a Greyhound trip to see an Electric Youth than in the classroom -- an education which ended with 7 1/2 months in Riker's Island...

I remember being fooled by the Barry Bonds phenomena in San Francisco.

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So I'm 50 today.  If you want an idea of what I've seen in that time, just go back and read the archives of this blog. 

I have had a lot of introspection in the last couple weeks.  Coupled with some of what I'm reading of current affairs in the media, I will openly admit there is some question (not any health scare, mind you) that I see #51.  That will be addressed in another post surrounding the Super Bowl.

But I'm still here, dammit.  From jilted boyfriends to those highways and by-ways to the MAGA hats, I've had a lot of threats to my life, and I'm still waiting for one cojone on that side of the equation -- 30+ years of it now!

By all accounts, I should be deceased, at someone's hand -- justified or otherwise.  But until that day comes, I'm trudging on...