How can DSotM be 40?

And how can Bobby Orr be 65? Everybody has seen the photo of the famous horizontal goal. I watched it live on TV and nearly freaked out. What I really remember about him playing was that he made just about everybody else on the ice look like they were wearing training skates or were just up from minor hockey. Here's a clip of a bunch of his goals. Just amazing. You young whippersnappers say all you like about Gretzky, and admitted, he holds a ton of records, but Orr is the best hockey player ever. He sure doesn't look 65 now.

The other thing about that second clip that is amazing is what the guys aren't wearing. No helmets, no face shields. There are some fan shots too, and it's interesting to see how people dressed and wore their hair. That's one of the reasons I like old movies, seeing ordinary street scenes.

And Dark Side of the Moon turned 40. How can that be? I don't remember it when it came out, only discovering it a few years later. I'd just bought a good stereo system, and a buddy wanted to hear what it sounded like. Yes, I was blown away. The thing is it doesn't seem all that long ago. I was living in Streetsville at the time. From there everything just seemed to flow. I didn't think I was moving to Calgary forever. I had a buddy move out, and he convinced me to move out, get a job, and split an apartment with him. So we did. Everything I owned fit into a 78 Lemans. I could write an entire blog about the drive out.

That apartment,  a tiny little illegal basement suite, a place in Dalhousie, a townhouse with Linda, and this house are the only places I've lived in Calgary. Somewhere along the line I woke up and realized it was home, and not Ontario. It's quite possible I'll never live in another home till someone carts me off to die in an old age home. Lets see if I can list all my employers here. Atco, City of Calgary, Nova, Amoco, BP, Skystone, EOS, IMS, Nexient, Enmax, Skystone again, Talisman, and now Penn West. Lest you get bad thoughts about what kind of worker I am to have held so many jobs, Skystone had me back, and Nova, Amoco, BP, Talisman, and Penn West all extended my contracts. So I must have been doing something right.

To be honest, in my head it's still about 1984. My mental map of Calgary has huge holes where I know there are homes, but I've never been there. Anything north of Country Hills is terra incognita. I still think of myself as a young person, even if my knees or back tell me different some days. I have an odd memory. Some memories are from when I was a very very small child. Lots of things over the years I can remember very clearly, yet I forgot my sunglasses at my massage therapist's on Wednesday. I can be driving somewhere, then suddenly realize I'm on auto-pilot and no idea where would have ended up if I hadn't remembered where I actually wanted to go. I almost did that going to yoga the other night, and only just made the exit. Yet I can remember what parts of a database used to look like, and can recognize my own fingerprints in changes.

I listened to Dark Side of the Moon the other day as I was reviewing a presentation I have to give next week. I fear I allowed myself to get distracted listening to Time. Maybe it's a sign of age, but it really struck home as I listened. The time goes so quickly. One dinner I remember clearly with Linda's cousin and his wife, who was breast feeding their oldest child. He's grown and on his own now. I met Georgina when she was maybe 3, being the child of the girlfriend of one of my best friends. She's married and has a delightful child of her own. Most people keep track of the ages of their friends kids by relating them to their own kids. Without kids of our own, I have to work to keep track. It's tougher than it sounds. There's probably an app for that.

Most people believe we will all live longer than our parents. A couple more years and I will have lived longer than my father. He died at what is now considered a breathtakingly young age, child mortality not considered. That has me a bit spooked now, to be honest. The odds of living longer than my mom are not particularly good. She's still going strong, and when last I checked a few months ago, HER mom was still going strong. I don't know many people my age that have a living grandparent. I'd like to think I can make it to 100, and have every intention of doing so, but the statistics are not promising.

Even though I'm musing about the past a bit here, I don't do it all that often. Mostly I'm forward looking, planning the things I want to be doing. Lots of things I still want to learn to do. Surfing and scuba diving are two of them, and I hope to get them done this year or next. Some people seem to like my photographs, and I'd like to learn a bit more about how to take good ones on purpose, instead of by accident. Lots of things I want to learn.

What about you? What do you want to learn to do?