Luciano Is Being Seventy

Sunday, September 27, 2015 Walked 7174 steps today I turned seventy today. I will be seventy for the next 365 days and I hope to write a little bit each and every day about those things that I see and hear and do for the first time and those things that I do, hear and see maybe for the last time.There will be a lot of twists and turns and I am sure there will be some unexpected delights. With the roses I will also get some thorns. What are the rewards at being this age and what are the diminishments that come with age. I will try to note the changes and offer insights as I go through this process. I can only do it on day at a time. I hope to write in my blog every day because the year is not finished until I turn seventy-one . For the last nine days, since last Sunday, September 20, 2015 when the Pope landed in Cuba I have been stuck to the television watching him. I have not done a lot of walking. That is the nice thing about being retired, you can stay in your pajamas all day an...

Massacre in Oregon - Thursday, October 1, 2015 I walked 11,116 steps today. I met my goal of walking 10,000 steps every day. Stay Healthy My Friends! In my earlier blog postings I said that I would write about those things that I see and experience for the first time and those things that I see and do for the last time. As I sit here listening to the news reports about the massacre in Roseburg, Oregon at  Umpqua Community College and wish that  masssacres of this nature were one of those things/events that I would see and experience for the last time, but I doubt it. There were 10 people  killed today and seven severly injured by one very crazy 20 year old gunman at a college in the small university town of Roseburg, Oregon. This is the fourth attack on a American college campus since August.  I get chills as I write this at the thought of what those parents and grandparents of those deceased students are going through at this very minute. Ten lives lost. What...

Monday Morning, September 21, 2015 I walked 7,922 steps this morning. I will complete the 10 K steps with an afternoon walk. Woo-Hoo!!  Well it finally happened, my grandson, David, (not his real name, I don't want to embarass him) had his first day at the university today. He graduated in early June with some fairly good grades and got an invitation to a UC school which accepted. This is when I feel that I am getting older. This is the boy that was born 18 years ago. I was there in the hospital room when he popped out. The first thing that I noticed were his big hands.  He had some pretty big hands for a little baby. Life is like a blur, where did these 18 years go? Woo-Hoo! David and his mom, my daughter, lived with me for the first 4 or 5 years of David's life. I would always remind him that I was the one that changed his dirty diapers, prepared his formula, bathed him, took him for bike rides, during the first years of his life. And now, his is at the university. Bef...

Sunday, September 20, 2015 My seventieth birthday day is a week from today. I am not planning a whole lot since I am going to be celebrating it with my friends and family in late November. It will be much cooler by then and the heat won't be too shocking for those relatives and friends who are coming from out of the area to help me celebrate. On my birthday, next Sunday,  I will probably go to my favorite restaurant, The Outback, and have a porterhouse steak. I don't have a steak too often, maybe once or twice a year. I love meat and look forward to this and this is definitely a super treat. Meat has always been a treat. Now that I can afford it, I find that I don't eat meat it as often. When I was growing up we were very poor and our main source of protein were beans. We had meat but it was very rare. When we had meat it was usually meat in tacos. Many times we had beans and tortillas for breakfast, beans and tortillas for lunch with potatoes and Kool-Aid and then beans...

Tuesday, September 8, 2015 I walked 7,209 steps this morning. My goal is to walk 10,000 steps every day. I am a little short on my goal this morning but I will try to make it up this sfternoon. What I got the idea to start my blog on turning seventy, I told my wife that I was going to write a blog titled "Luciano is Being Seventy." You mean she said, " Luciano is going to be seventy." No I said, "Luciano is being seventy." I got me to thinking, what is the difference of "going to be seventy" or "being seventy." The main difference in the definition of these to words or phrase according to Webster is the following: Full Definition of  BEING - It is a noun.  a living thing : the state of existing : the most important or basic part of a person's mind or self 1 a   :   the quality or state of having existence b  (1)   :   something conceivable as existing  (2)   :   something that actually exists  (3) ...

Thursday, September 4, 2015 Walked 7,782 steps this morning. My goal is 10,000 steps a day. I am a little short but I will make it up this afternoon with another walk. I have a daily average of 6,790 steps. This includes days when I have to run errands or go out of town. I am just rying to stay healthy as I approach seventy. The things that we do when we are younger really affects us when we are older. Today I feel great! I feel great because I don't have a hangover. That's right no hangover. For me it didn't take a lot of drinks to have a hangvoer, maybe one or two drinks. My body was not processing alcohol after many years of drinking. So the last time that I had a drink was on July 4, 1992. Today, that is over 23 years of being sober and it feels just great. Those of you who knew me in my youth know how much I loved to drink and all the problems that it caused for me in relationships and with the legal system. I won't go into that right now that will have to be a...

Today my iPhone6 Health ap says that I walked 7922 steps or about 3.14 miles. I walk twice in the morning, one time with dogs and one time without. The walk with dogs is slow because they want to smell everything. My second walk is much faster, My goal is to walk at 10000 steps every day. Some days I do it and some days I don't. My time is usually about 32 minutes for 2 miles but today it was about 45 minutes. Too many of my neighbors were out and about and wanted to talk about the news at city hall. But that is another story. A few days I posted the words to the song sung by George Burns, "I Wish I Was Eighteen Again" and I started thinking that if I really wanted to be 18 again. When I was 18 I was very strong, I could lift a 125 lb. barbell with one hand, I had a lot of stamina, and endurance. But was 18 a good year for me? I was a senior in high school and you know what they say about high school, "that high school is the best of times and the worst of times....

Sunday, August 30, 2015 Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of Katrina. The date was August 29, 2005. It is very hard not to know this fact since every news station has a program about Katrina, including my favorite news Sunday Morning show on CBS.  When I first heard the news yesterday I was in a bit of a shock. Was it really 10 years later. It had to be 10 years later since there were pictures of President Bush in his plane flying over New Orleans. I remember the pictures and the scenes from this disaster. Bodies were floating in the rivers, the football stadium was in shambles, people were on roof tops waving and trying to be rescued. And waiting days and days to be finally rescued. It was hard to believe that 80% of New Orleans was under water. I have visited New Orleans numerous times in the 1980's, including walking into the Superdome. What an interesting city! I remember jogging along Lake Pontchartain towards the causeway and enjoying the beautiful scenery along the way. ...

Monday, August 31, 2015 According to my health ap on my iPhone6, this morning,  I walked 8,143 steps or about 3.2 miles. I will do another mile or 2 miles later in the afternooon when the day temperature isn't 112 and the sun isn't as hot. I am really looking forward to the fall season. My goal is to walk at least 10,000 steps every day. Some days I accomplish it and some days I fall short.  But I try to walk every day. I have been walking every day for about 10 years. I don't do the10 k's or the 1/2 marathons that I used to do in the late 1970's and 1980's. My grandson looks at me and can't believe that I used to run that far. I showed him  the t-shirt where I broke 50 minutes for a 10K. But then I take out my other  event t-shirts and show him the tags on the shirts and he becomes a believer.  "Grandson, I was't always this age?" If you don't have a dog, I would recommend getting a small dog. I have a 10 year old 1/2 Shitsu and 1/2 Yo...

I spent last Wednesday, August 25, taking my father-in-law from one medical appointment to the next. He had a knew replacement surgery at 89 years, in January of this year. We took him to the orthopedic surgeon for  a checkup. The surgeon says the knee seems fine, he is using a walker to get around. The one thing this surgery did is to alleviate the pain in his left knee. He was walking around on a knee that was bone on bone for about 2 years. Before the surgery the doctors gave him either cortisone or rooster shotscrest to alleviate the pain. That would work but only for so long.. So you can imagine the pain. This is one tough old guy but the pain almost made him cry. As I took my father-in-law to his next medical appoointment, and as he shuffled on his walker down the long corridor of the Hospital to his next appointment, I realized that my father-in-law was the age that I am now when I met my wife in 1996. That was almost 20 years ago. He was 70 years old. The age that I will ...

“The mission of my blog is to encourage a thoughtful life among the baby boomers that leads to feelings of belonging and hope in both myself and my readers by exposure to a variety of ideas, experiences, and real-life stories as I head into my seventies.I hope that sometimes my experiences will bring a smile to your face. Stay healthy my friends!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3c-WBn5cCg Wednesday, August 26, 2015 Every year that I have a birthday I think about the lyrics to this song, "I Wish I Was Eighteen Again"  by George Burns. I have attached the YouTube link to the video of George singing it, I hope that you can see it. I guess the lyrics to the song say it all. At a bar down in Dallas An old man chimed in And I thought he Was out of his head Just being a young man I just laughed it off When I heard what That old man had said He said, I'll never again Turn the young ladies heads Or go running off into the wind I'm three quarters home From the start to the end And I wish I was eighteen again I wish I was eighteen again And going where I've never been But old folks and old oaks Standing tall just pretend I wish I was eighteen again Now time turns the pages And, oh, life goes so fast The years turn the Black hair all grey I talked to some young folks Hey, they don...

I am starting this blog on this date, August 25, 2015, almost a month before I turn seventy. I never thought that I would be seventy. I always thought that seventy was old, very old. Now I am turning seventy next month. I am entering the last quarter of my life. It is scary in one way but yet I have lived to this great age. I want to chronicle in this blog what it feels like to be seventy. I still see myself as maybe 26. Even though I don't have the stamina that I once had. Like the songs says, "I am not as good as I once was but I am good once as I ever was." I see the obituaries in my local newspaper and I read the obits of people dying that didn't reach seventy.  I feel very blessed in that sense.  People that are my age are the tip of the baby-boomers group. Those people that were born between 1946 and 1960 or so. Even though I was born in late 1945 I always considered myself a baby boomer because most of my classmates were baby boomers born in 1946.We are the gro...