The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

About 7 hours ago I turned 70. Welcome to the new 60. Or the new 50. Or whatever. I think they mean years, not IQ, but I suspect it’s not years. It’s only been about an hour ago that I woke up to discover I was now a septegenarian. If I lived in a society that revered its elders, I would be a king. But as you probably know, we live in a society that finds older people mostly embarrassing. Actually, after mostly old white people elected Trump as president, I do too. So much for that adage that age begets wisdom.

I thought maybe this would be the year I was forced into retirement. When the pandemic hit, I figured for sure this was the year. But if 70 years have taught me anything, they proved time and time again don’t count yer chickens before they hatch, that cackling you hear may not be fowl. We had two colossal maples fall behind the house and so the year began with a major job of bucking, splitting, hauling and stacking firewood, 12 cord so far and plenty more to go. You think that’s retirement, you been watching daytime TV too long.

My day job, the stained glass stuff, well, that had pretty much dried up. I lost a couple projects the past few years in Utah and Alaska, made the finals but missed the championship ring. Those don’t come along very often anymore in these times of fiscal restraint. Alaska gutted its public art program, no more out-of-staters allowed now that the oil subsidies up there are dwindling to trickles. I had organized a local craft show that featured the best artist/craftspeople we could round up, held it two years but this year the plague canceled it. The glass and the guitars I’d made for it, hoping maybe to sell some of those instruments, well, they can just clutter up my studio another 12 months, probably longer. So hello retirement, I figured.

I offered the county a donation of a 21 foot long mural of glass for their new Administration Building, figuring I might as well keep working even if I have to work for free, maybe delay the Big R a few months.

But like I said, eggs aren’t chickens and so when I got notified I’d been picked for a glass commission by the WA Arts Commission, I put the rocker back in the corner, cast off my lap blanket and put away the drool bucket. Maybe it wouldn’t be the end of a glass career just yet. Next year probably. Yep, I can just about hear that chick pecking at the shell, almost breaking out.

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