For the last couple years the President has made proclamations concerning my senior status and it seems that I’m now fully senior and no more are needed. (although there is still the “you have to start taking social security payments” coming sometime in the next 4 years along with ” you have to start withdrawing from your IRA”. But other than that I guess I am a full senior. At least I didn’t have to put up with our idiot congressman making some stupid statement just because Obama said something.
50 years ago on Thursday Nov. 3 1966 (I was born on Thursday also so this is also my birth day birthday) Portland In. had had a big snow the day before. We had football practice in a large amount of snow, which was fun, and it was our last practice before the last game of my limited and pretty much unsuccessful football career. The next night was the senior night game that would bring it all to an end, that is until the school officials decided to call the game off because of snow.
46 years ago Nov 3 1970 I turned 21 and in celebration of this election season I’ll note that it was an election day. And since the 26th amendment was not enacted until 1971 you had to be 21 to vote and I was not, by about 6 hours. Although, it didn’t seem that big a deal as it was the mid term elections and there was a bigger deal. What was a big deal was the rule that was in place that required a liquor establishment be closed during the voting hours. They stole most of the traditional ‘go to bars all day on your 21st birthday’ from me on top of not letting me vote.
Actually the whole thing of voting on Tuesday is nowadays pretty stupid. When the old founding guys decided this the reasoning was that you can’t vote on the Sunday the Sabbath because you are to waste your time sitting in church and stuff on that day. Because they didn’t have the highway system or good public transportation the male land owners needed a day to travel to the voting place and so it was decided that Tuesday would be a good day. Why we don’t change this is beyond me. I voted last Thursday and it worked just fine.
Meanwhile back in 1966, it was the fall of the senior high school year for the class of 1967. So I have just turned 67 50 years after the year of the class of 67. Highway 67 was the main road between Portland and Muncie so on Nov 3 1966 a pretty important highway. This year 67 seems to be a pretty important number so add it to your lotto list.
Even though the football game got called off we still got our letter jackets and after wearing it that year it has hung in the closet for the last 50 years. I was surprised to find that the Wilson Sporting Goods company must have used some kind of inferior wool like materials and leather like materials in the manufacture of this jacket as it seems to have significantly shrunken just hanging on a hanger in the closet for the last 50 years.
