Milestones

January 2008 has already been a month of milestones. This past week my son turned sixteen. And the week before that yours truly, turned, ahem, fifty. That’s right. FIFTY! But I don’t feel like fifty. Well, I’m not sure what fifty’s supposed to feel like, but I don’t feel any different than I did at say, forty-nine.

I guess I have some good company and lots of it. I read somewhere that since 2001 someone turns fifty every six seconds. Here are some other people turning fifty in 2008:
1958: Grandmaster Flash, Ellen DeGeneres, Ice-T, Sharon Stone, Holly Hunter, D. Boon, Alec Baldwin, Andie MacDowell, Michelle Pfeiffer, Rick Santorum, Drew Carey, Annette Bening, Prince, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Jello Biafra, Kevin Bacon, Mark Cuban, Bill Berry, Madonna, Angela Bassett, Belinda Carlisle, Steve Guttenberg, Tim Burton, Michael Jackson, Thomas Dolby, Tim Robbins, Viggo Mortensen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Charlene Tilton, George Saunders, Nikki Sixx, Bebe Neuwirth. Elsewhere: Andy Gibb, Gary Numan, Gary Oldman, Simon Le Bon.
Source : Braniac

In the Bible, fifty is a Jubilee year. It’s a year of liberty and release from debt. It's a year that to enjoy the increase of the land without sowing or reaping:

Leviticus 25:10, 12
And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family.

That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee to you; in it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows..., not gather the grapes of you untended vine.

For it is the Jubilee; it shall be holy to you; you shall eat its increase from the field.

I'm ready for some JUBILATION! Let's Party!

On Turning Fifty
Today I turned fifty. I feel really good.
My body's still working quite well thanks. (Touch wood!)
My hair's not too grey, my wrinkles are few,
I can still touch my toes with my knuckles. (Can you?)
I'm quite full of vigour, just getting ripe.
(But they now print the phone book in much smaller type.)
Inside this old body I'm still young, but then
If life starts at forty, I'm really just ten.
By Sue Taylor