Here I am.
I was not the soldier killed in Da Nang,
nor crushed when my car slipped off the jack.
I was not stabbed in a doorway in Kew Gardens, Queens,
nor did I die of cancer or Ebola or AIDS.
I was not gunned down in a market in Memphis,
or bombed in Baghdad or drowned off the Jersey shore.
I was not asleep on the Andrea Doria when the Stockholm crashed in.
I was not on the Cyrus Street Viaduct in 1989 when the earthquake hit,
or in the Upper Big Branch West Virginia coal mine when disaster struck.
All of these things happened,
but happened to somebody else.
They were news to me.
I cannot take credit for my long life.
It wasn’t something I did or didn’t do.
It wasn’t overly cautious.
I ventured out;
took planes and trains, drove automobiles,
hiked in bear country, walked among rattlesnakes,
snorkeled in Florida over barracuda,
walked on a glacier, jumped a crevasse.
Circumstances beyond my control
forced onto me a most favorable luck.
Thank God!
2015