Birthday 48: The Beat Goes On.

When It comes to one's birthday, it isn't a bad thing to look at the events and memories of that life. This year my thoughts were not recorded in the bathtub as they were last year. A little more thought went into them. As I said last year, my friend Doug used to say, “birthdays are a luxury that not everyone can afford.” If you think about it, he was right, then I think about the joy that will follow my very last birthday.

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  When my biography is written, it will not begin, “it was a dark and stormy night...” My youngest sister's story will begin that way though.
  
• Since last year's list, (See August Archive, 2007) I have added the faith tradition of the Episcopal Church to my list of affiliations.
  
• I have smelled the essence of vinegar as the altar was being washed on Good Friday.
  
• I have installed a digital TV converter with the help of four people on two continents.
  
• In the past year I have sat at a table in a pizza parlor in Evansville where the people around it were named, Don, Don, Don and John. John did not feel left out, by the way.
  
• I tasted anchovies on pizza for the first time that evening, they're okay.
  
• I have crossed the Golden Gate, San Francisco Bay, Washington Street, John F. Kennedy, and Stot's Creek Bridges, though not on the same day.
  
• I have never seen an OBGYN professionally.
  
• I still have the brackets and wires from my orthodontics. I paid for them, they are mine and the Orthodontist gave them to me as a joke for what I gladly paid for my smile. I didn't think of it as that much of a joke, it would have made a nice down payment on a car, but it wouldn't have lasted this long.
  
• In just a week or so I will observe the 10th anniversary of the death of one of my dearest friends.
  
• The Widor Toccata is one of my favorite organ pieces.
  
• I tear up at the sound of the Navy Hymn and feel a special jolt of pride when I hear the trumpet opening of the National Hymn.
  
• I have tried digging to China, but only got as far as their tree roots.
  
• I am not a queen and yet I have two gold crowns.
  
• I once designed a floral arrangement that was delivered to Luciano Pavarotti on his final visit to Indianapolis.
  
• Once I met a man who claimed that he was so in love with a particular woman that it hurt, now 15 plus years later he has gotten over the pain.
  
• I still wonder if 2 out of 3 dentists chew gum for their patients who don't have teeth.
  
• My marbles are not lost, I keep them in a jar in the hutch.
  
• My favorite salad dressing is Bleu Cheese.
  
• My favorite place to eat it is Iria's or Puccini's Smiling Teeth.
  
• I've learned that it's true that, “kisses aren't contracts” I've also learned that handshakes aren't either.
  
• There's no place like home.
  
• At times I want to be alone and I want a sentry at the door to say, “No one sees the great Oz, not nobody, not no how.!” If he wears a green fur hat, it's up to him. (Though I would kinda like that.)
  
• There are times when the above doesn't apply at all.
  
• When Mom said, “I brought you into this world and I can take you out!” she was just kidding, but it still sounds like something that I should believe when I hear it.
  
• Dad told me to stay out of the wood shed, I didn't and I got taken to “the wood shed.” Lesson learned.
  
• I remember Topo Gigo, Beanie and Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent, The Jackie Gleason Show with the June Taylor Dancers and Thirtysomething.
  
• Getting to stay up in summertime to see reruns of Red Skelton was a treat.
  
• I still watch reruns of Red Skelton and they are still treats.
  
• I see the irony in an ice cream flavor called Chubby Hubby.
  
• My favorite movie remains Mrs. Miniver.
  
• Mrs. Miniver and Chubby Hubby can be pretty good together on a spring evening.
  

Birthdays are truly a time to look at the good, look at the bad and wonder if there were ways to have made each experience a wonderful learning experience. I've not always done that, but I do enjoy this time of thinking about the fond.