My first task in the morning is to read the obituaries in the paper. At least once a week I see someone’s name that I know. I immediately begin to reminisce about that individual and think about my own mortality. I told my son, Greg Jr. the other day “no matter how well a person looks or feel today, old age and death will always win.” The key is to learn how to live your life so that at the end you can look back and truthfully say, “I have lived a life well spent.” There are many people in our community that I am certain can look back at their lives and see a life well spent. 

At age 53, I have lived to see many people who I met when I moved to Montgomery, Alabama in 1987 become elderly. In these 24 years, persons alive today who were my current age when I met them are now 77 years old. Some look remarkably well and others look quite bad. The ones that look remarkably well are the ones that I use to see at the “gym” or walking around the neighborhood or walking around Vaughn Park or the Shakespeare Festival. The ones that look quite bad are the ones I use to run into at the buffets, the ice cream parlors, glimpse them as I passed by the ABC Liquor Store on Decatur Street, or those I saw purchasing cigarettes at the local convenience stores.  

My experience has taught me that the keys to great golden years are good health (promoted by daily exercise), money (accumulated through planning) and having a life full of meaning. For those of you who are young enough to make a difference in the outcome of your golden years I suggest you stop any vice, start or continue exercising and find or maintain meaning in your life. It is very possible for a 50-year-old today to see 100 tomorrow with the expectation of another 30 years. “Now as my wife Debra would say, “Put that in your pipe and smoke it!” Debra’s grandmother Mrs. Amy Lawrence was 97 when she passed. 

 In the words of my dad, “You must honor the chair whether it is sitting, walking or lying down.”