Today is my father’s 65th birthday.

I don’t think I like the idea of my father getting older any more than he does. But I also don’t think anyone looking at him would peg him for 65. Every time I see him, he seems to have a complaint about how he can’t do the things he used to without a fair amount of soreness or regret the next day. That is to say that he still DOES all the things he used to. He just feels it the day after and he doesn’t seem to understand why. My brother and I sometimes are flabbergasted that he’s so unaware of his age.

My father, age 10, with his father in Hamburg. Circa 1954

He still climbs trees, carries three times his weight into his attic, builds and dismantles anything in or around the house, and gardens. It guess it just never occurs to him that at his age, he should probably cut some of these things out of his life, or at least be cognizant of that fact that he can’t accomplish them anymore with the ease of a 30 year old.

One of his biggest complaints is that his skin is thinning in certain places, specifically on the top of his hands. Even the tiniest of workshop mishaps can require him to fetch a band-aid. He’ll show me and make a face, disappointed seemingly that he can’t simply thicken his own skin out of sheer willpower.

His age has not robbed him of his love for Science Fiction (old and new), old westerns, Xena Warrior Princess, really bad jokes, crossword puzzles in both English and German, model HO scale trains, nor The World of Warcraft. We just bought him an iPhone and he’s handling it with the ease of a thirteen year old.

Which is all a long way of saying that at 65, my dad can still beat the shit out of your dad.

Happy Birthday, Papa!