Today I turned seventy-three. I used to think seventy-three was old, but now I know better.

Growing up, I was the youngest in my class because I started kindergarten at age four. My mother had begged the Cincinnati Board of Education to let me start school early because we had just moved there, I had no friends, and I did have four weeks of kindergarten under my belt from Buffalo, New York where school started at four for everyone.

I have a vague recollection of the test the Board of Education gave me. I remember a picture of two baby shoes and I was asked what was missing. Well, one of the shoes had no laces. I got that answer, and probably some others, right so, much to my mother's relief, the Board of Education allowed me to enter kindergarten.

As the youngest, I was the last one of my friends to get a driver's license, vote and drink legally. Back then I was always wishing that I was older.

No more. Today, on my seventy-third birthday, one of my close childhood classmates is already seventy-four and four days old. Two others will be celebrating their seventy-fourth birthdays soon. All three of these women are living proof that seventy-three can be a very good age, and I'm counting on that.

Peter asked me what I would like for my birthday.

"Nothing money can buy," I told him.