Win Harper | Life and Leadership Coach

February 12th, 2010

Today I am 66 years old. Wow!  When I was 18, in 1962, I tried to imagine myself living into the 21st Century.  I would have to be 56!!!: An impossible age to think of at that time. 

What does the number 66 mean?  Well, my Rutgers freshman football jersey number was 66, and I graduated from Rutgers and joined the Marine Corps in 1966.  The bathtub in our new house will be 66” long.  There is the famous US Route 66, colloquially known as the “Main Street of America” or the “Mother Road”.  In a song of the same name, Nat King Cole advised us to: “Get your kicks on route sixty-six.”  Jimmy Dean’s Big Bad John “… stood six foot six and weighed 2-45.

In the end it is a number, a label, and in this particular situation it is an artificial measurement of one’s life.

Satchel Paige, legendary baseball star, once asked:  “How old would you be, if you didn’t know how old you were?”  I like that question.  As I look through my eyes at the world today it is just as vivid and fascinating as it was when I looked out at 25. In that regard, I have no sense of being 66 years old.  Yes, I have changed over the years; I no longer grab the rim in basketball, run 50 miles a week, or stay up after 10 PM.  At the same time I am wiser and gentler then I was at 25.

While I have played the role of the lone wolf, I know that I would not have gotten here without the support and love of my friends and family.  Everyone I interacted with contributed to my life in some way, and I am not able to list them all because of space constraints. 

These are some of the people who helped me become who I am, and I want to publicly acknowledge their input to my life and thank them:

My mother and father, my sister and brother-in-law, Moose Gilghrist, Miss Jeanie Gilson, Mr. John Bush, Mrs. Mary Edmonds, Hank Brenneman, Lindy Lauro, Pat Maratto, Phil Mitchell, Bill Silva, Colonel Boscoe Parrish, LtCol Richard Twohey, 1st Lt Jim Burke, Dianne Harper, Jimmy Sweat, Traci Harper, Jim Hurlburt, General Al Gray, John Berryhill, Skip Backus, Lois Guarino, Adam Simon, Rich Warren, Don Hamlin, Gerry Nanos, Juan Carlos and his family, Tom Murphy, Elizabeth Harper, and every Marine, Habitat Homeowner and volunteer, and Omegan. 

You have all enriched my life, and influenced who I am today. THANK YOU!

I also want to recognize the places and organizations that have molded me: 

New Castle, Pennsylvania, The 1961 New Castle High School football team, Rutgers University, The Delta Chapter of Chi Phi Fraternity, The United States Marine Corps, Jacksonville Beaches Habitat for Humanity, The Coaches Training Institute, and the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies. 

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t thank the 6 people who are signed up for my weekly blog. 

While the above people and organizations influenced me, I am solely responsible for my actions. I have had my share of success and failure, joy and pain.  I have loved and been loved, I have felt the ecstasy of new love, and the pain of a broken heart.  I have done good deeds, and I have done things I now wish I would have done differently.  I have been a son, a brother, a husband, a father, and a husband.  I have had many roles and worn many labels.  Some I accepted, others I cursed.  I have been sad, mad, glad and scared.  I haven’t always recognized those feelings, but I am getting better at that.

Today, I appreciate beauty and imperfection.  I smile as I watch everyday people do everyday things.  I understand and appreciate that we are all here living our lives in our own ways.  I watch the sun rise and set.  I watch our cat sleep.  I am the witness to the ordinary lives of extraordinary people, and the extraordinary lives of ordinary people.  I feel the oneness of all things, and I smile.  I love and I am loved.

And I have learned that this is what it’s all about:  THE HOKEY POKEY

I am 66 and I am me.