When my brother sent me a card one year on my birthday, that’s the day I knew I was old. I ripped open the envelope and there, staring me in the face on the front of the card in big bold numbers: 70. I guess they make those numbers big so that feeble 70-year-olds can read it without their glasses.

70. The definition of old. Year after year, riffling through the card racks at Walmart, I was always down at this end of the aisle, where the 2s and 10s and 20s were. The big numbers, like 70, were way down there, next to the sorry-for-your-loss cards. Yup, 70 definitely was old from where I was standing.

They say 70 is the new 50. I say, first of all, what does that even mean? If I’m 50, that means I will be retiring in 16 years. Does that mean if I am really 70, do I have to wait until I am 86 to retire? No, thanks. I’ll stick with being 70.

I once read the funniest description of old people; I only wish I remembered the person’s name to give them credit, but as we all know, memory is the first thing to go. The idea was to picture a vinyl LP as our lives, spinning on a turntable. Then picture us humans all starting off life at the spindle and spinning our way through life until we approach the outer edge, about to fall off.

That was a funny picture in my head back when I was 50 — not the new 50 but the real 50. Now that I’m the old 70+, not so much. I’m not ready to fall off just yet; I’ve still got a couple of good songs left in me. Maybe enough for a whole album.

So I jumped out of the groove headed for the exit and hopped on board the train going to “70 — now what?”

This new trip I’m on has gotten off to an incredible start. Amazingly, at 70, I finished writing my novel, or at least the first draft of it. Now, almost two years later, the time has come for me to start pushing it out into the world, and that means sometime next year or the year after, my book will be published, and then I’ll be an even bigger number. Maybe 75 will be the new 40.

The question now isn’t “Now what?” It’s “What’s next?”

Today, I’m spinning me some Van Morrison …