“Old Fart Air” successfully Launched to fly the Skies of Tomorrow

“Old Fart Air” successfully launched to fly the skies of tomorrow last Friday when I finally arrived at ‘Gate 65’ courtesy of having lived long enough to celebrate the grand occasion.

My “Old Fart Air” birthday cake makes it official!

As the saying goes, “the proof is in the pudding” – or in this case – in the entirely cute “Old Fart Air” cake you see in these pictures that arrived along with my wife in a surprise visit to my mountain cabin, where I was hard at work on my birthday looking for unauthorized or unwelcome smokes from my summer fire lookout site.

If we’d actually placed and lit all the candles I was eligible for that day, I’d have probably been required to call in the water bombers to douse my own cabin because of the huge clouds of black smoke doing so would likely have sent curling out the windows. As it was, the mere six that were lit to mark the day were almost enough to make the fire alarm chirp on the ceiling, so it’s probably just as well the other fifty-nine were left out of the equation.

The “six-flame fire in the sky-cabin” shot of me happily contemplating becoming an official Old Fart.

Created and decorated at my wife’s request by family member Anne Marie Smith in an approximation of an aircraft shape, I laughed with delight when I saw it because the moniker placed upon its surface perfectly identified what I’ve been looking forward to calling myself in a post age-65 world – and this cake helped make it official that I finally was one!

I’ve always believed that age is a relative factor in my life anyways, and have since age 60 delighted in keeping the humor levels high whenever the subject of age came up. Like I usually tell most folks who ask, ‘I still refuse to act my age, so the numbers really don’t matter anyways’. You’re only as old as you feel, and I’m blessed to say that I still don’t feel the officially venerable old age of 65.

A good example of the kind of humor I like to see where age is concerned happened five years ago after my 60th birthday, when one of my brothers had called to ask my wife to pass on his birthday greetings for me. In the course of their conversation he’d asked her “So how’s it feel to know you’re sleeping with a senior citizen now?” She told me the question left her momentarily speechless before the laughter of its truth began to bubble out of her to accompany my brother’s chuckles.

Now that Old Fart Air has successfully launched to fly the skies of tomorrow I know I’m going to have a great time with word plays on the subject – and the way I look at the age factor – that’s the way it should be!