When I'm Sixty-Four

Today I am sixty-four years old. That's a lot of time trodding around this planet.

A lot has changed since I first achieved consciousness in the nineteen-sixties. They say it's rude to claim times were better in the past, but I remember a lot of good things from those days. Racism, sexism, homophobia notwithstanding.

Corporations hadn't made family businesses all but extinct. It was a lot easier to open a small business. I think back to great old stores with odd books and candies not found elsewhere. Bookstores were a lot more common. Movie theaters were mostly owned by families and there was a homier feeling in them.

It must have happened, but you didn't hear about mass shootings like you do today. Most people I knew hated Nixon and later Reagan, but these guys were angels compared to what we have now.

I gave my life over to horror around forty years ago and I never looked back, nor have I ever really regretted it, The field is absolutely different than the halcyon days of the eighties, and it's no longer my world. It never really was, but I had that impression.

Sixty-four isn't considered an auspicious birthday, unless you consider the Sgt Pepper connection. Yet it feels like a big one for me.

I try not to take these things so seriously, but I'm down today. I was supposed to accompany my wife Clara to the big American Library Association conference in Philadelphia. I was looking forward to the whole trip. It was my birthday present from Clara. Among other things, I was hoping to meet Joe Hill.

Unfortunately, due to a health problem I can't make the trip. It's nothing too serious, but a seven hour train ride isn't what I need right now.

It gets me thinking about a lot of things.

I remember when I lived in a little shack in the eighties. I had a couple of roommates and we were friendly with a neighbor. My housemates are now dead. So is the neighbor. I'm still going and I was the hardest drinker of us all.

All three ate poorly and didn't drink enough water.

I successfully gave up alcohol years ago. Now my biggest problem is my diet. I still want to eat like a kid. Pizza, chips, spicy food, ice cream.

Contemporary Americans have the worst diet in history. It's going to catch up to people. I saw what the young workers ate daily at my job and I was appalled. You can't tell them anything. Like young folks throughout history they know it all.

A year or two ago I stopped at a Taco Bell for old time's sake. It was horrible. The quality of the ingredients, the haphazard way the food was thrown together, the prices. Why do people put up with it?

I almost never eat any fast food, but I need to stop in other ways. Cheese, heavily processed meats, packaged snacks, excessive sugar and sodium intake. It's the American way, but it's also a bad way.

I'm not saying I'll never eat another slice of pizza, but the days of scarfing down half a large Meat Holocaust pie are over. Dessert items, fried foods, buttery sauces have to be severely minimized.

I have an acquaintance in the horror fiction community. He's a heavy drinker, smoker. Last time I saw him he looked terrible. He said his doctor tried to get him to quit drinking and smoking cigars. I said he should. "That's not living", he repeatedly insisted.

I let it go. I didn't ask about his wife, his daughter. Is partying with the boys like an overage twenty year old really more important than them? Like a lot of people he got mixed up along the way about what living means.

What matters most?

For me it's my wife, Clara. Evenings lying in bed with books and cats. Movie nights. Afternoon outings looking for books and movies. Days and nights in our wonderful yard, enjoying the trees and flowers. Breathing the air. The little things so many of us take for granted.

Then there is reading. How many times would I like to re-read Swan Song? How about Farmer in the Sky? Christine?

Do I want to miss out on the upcoming publications? New books by Grady Hendrix, Catriona Ward, or Dan Chaon?

Wouldn't I like twenty more years to enjoy classic slasher movies? Do I not wish to re-live the awe and terror I felt when I first watched Halloween forty-seven years ago?

Life is precious, books are magic, movies are waking dreams. I want them as long as I can have them. I wish I had a dozen eternities to experience it all.

It's a glum birthday, but I am humbly grateful for all I do have. I've made it this far, which is more than I can say for a lot of people I've known. Sure, it's an oven outside and I can't stand the heat. I have a comfortable house filled to the brim with wondrous literary and cinematic treasures. It's all I ever dreamed about.

Maybe I'll even have thirty years left. If I stop my bad habits and stay reasonably fit, it's possible. I'm not sure I'll want to watch Dr. Butcher, M.D. or read The Girl Next Door in my nineties, but it would be kind of cool if I did.

Written by Mark Sieber