Cowboy Turns 41 from Sam Page on Vimeo.

Don’t ask me why, but I used to be pretty certain that I would die young. Sadly, the belief was only perpetuated when I came out of the closet 12 years ago.  It wasn’t until 2003 that I came face to face with being HIV-positive, determined not to let the diagnosis suffocate me.

In the years since, I’ve met a couple of men in their 90s, one of them is Jack LaLanne, the father of fitness and a pretty major inspiration to me personally. And then there’s Val Lewis, the patriarch of the Lewis family of San Francisco, who embraced me with open arms when I first met him 11 years ago.

Of course, I don’t know how long I’m going to live, but both of these men have inspired me to re-think my own intention of what’s possible in old age. And now I intend to live to see my 100th birthday.

This cool aging calculator says I’m pretty much on target. I just gotta floss more.

BRONSON, DUBBED “COWBOY” BY HIS BEST FRIEND CHAD PRESSWOOD, TURNS 40 TODAY. And he’s taking that 40-year old bull by the horns. In the last year of his thirties, Bronson joined the rodeo, traveled to Spain and Bora Bora, met his long lost sister, faced his childhood demon, and got married. (more…)