8: I got my first musical instrument, a two-octave xylophone. Discovered that I could find the right notes to play songs that I knew without help. Music has always been the most important thing in the world to me.
10: They told me I could skip 6th grade and go directly from 5th to 7th. Definitely a mixed blessing; being tossed in with all the guys who were already going through puberty was awful.
11: My first foreign language class. Spanish was mandatory in junior high school in Arizona in those days. I discovered how much I love foreign languages and linguistics, at an age when my mind and my mouth were flexible enough to learn one.
14: My parents paid tuition to take me out of the wretched high school in our district and sent me to a really good one in town for my last three years. I had no idea that schools existed where you could actually learn stuff, instead of getting it all from my father or reading books.
16: First love. (Chaste, this was the 1950s after all.) Also, my first guitar.
17: Got to leave my horrible parents and the horrible patch of scorched earth called Arizona, and go off to college in friggin' LOS ANGELES! It was like the scene in "The Wizard of Oz" when all of a sudden the world turned Technicolor.
19: My first motorcycle. Also, second love, not chaste -- this was the 1960s.
21: First marriage (to second love, actually). Doomed, we were both too screwed up. But we had our moments and it was definitely a milestone.
24: Learned to play go. That's the second most fun thing in the world after music. Also, my first off-road motorcycle. That's the third most fun thing but it's been many years now since I got too old and creaky to keep it up.
25: Discovered wife was having affair with my best friend. Have never really trusted a man since then.
27: Psychoactive substances. Let's just say that those of us who didn't get into them until we were older had much less problematic experiences than some of you who started young and talk about having to "kick the habit." I think there's a reason why kids aren't supposed to get high and it's not just because adults are mean and want all the drugs for themselves.
30: Celebrated this milestone birthday in Prague, during a two-month motorcycle trip across Europe. Meeting the people in eastern Europe during the days of communism was an indescribable experience. It really was like a different planet.
34: Married the most wonderful woman in the universe. (Still going strong.)
36: Second major motorcycle accident. (The first one didn't seem like a milestone at the time.) Haven't been on one since. (On the street anyway. Kept up dirt riding for a couple more years.)
39: First sports car. Giving up motorcycles didn't mean that driving to work had to be boring.
40: First dog (since childhood, only cats so far). This changed my life more than several of those other milestones put together. We now have twelve and I can't tell you how happy they make me.
52: Walked away from a cushy, high-paying government job because I couldn't reconcile it with my conscience. Discovered that if you've spent your whole life feeding at the public trough, the private sector will just eat you alive.
58: I was down to one job in the whole country being available to me, had to move away from wife and pets to take it. Only see them on vacation time.
