Birthdays

Dear Reader,
Recently I celebrated a birthday. At my age, this has become a dubious honor, with a certain amount of playful teasing from family and friends. I am as young as I feel, which on most days means feeling bright and vital. And yet, while some of my friends are stubbornly continuing to ply their trade, others are slowly winding it down.
In a way I am living in two worlds. Those who see me without knowing me might believe me to be much more of a boy than I really am because I’m still in the thick of crusading on campaigns, some meaningful and others silly. Yet on my honest days, I feel like I’m cobbling my body together to do this work, realizing as I go that some things don’t work as well as they used to.
In the end, I guess it doesn’t matter much since we all end up on one side of the spectrum or the other depending on how nobly (or ignobly) we lived our lives. But every morning we wake up and try again…which is noble in and of itself.
Patrick J. Wood
Publisher
Author of “Dear Reader” and “Tapestry of Love and Loss”