Today is my father’s 76th birthday. Birthdays were always a big thing at my house. As a child it means you are “getting older.” It might mean you are big enough for that ride at Disneyland, or getting that special birthday gift reserved for “older kids.” Many times getting older meant different, or more chores - more responsibility. It might have meant a bigger allowance! I remember wanting a watch and I had to wait until my eighth birthday. It was a Timex with a gray watch band. I really liked that gift!
When you get older, there are other important milestones. Being old enough for a part time job, turning sixteen so you can get your drivers license, or for some being old enough to buy booze are all examples of birthdays which hold some significance for many.
Some women hate certain birthdays. Turning thirty, forty, fifty, and sixty are sometimes traumatic. They don’t want you to do anything special (although they secretly do…). “Don’t tell everyone how old I am!” I always try to say something nice like “you don’t look a day over sixty” – if they are fifty for instance. I try to lighten the mood. Usually you get a smile and a “Thanks.” When women get older though, they take pride in their birthdays. “Just turned eighty” some say with pride. “Ninety!” another might state with only the enthusiasm a ninety year old can muster.
Men on the other hand for the most part take birthdays as another accomplishment. The same birthdays which women abhor, the men look at like a “job promotion” or a “raise.”
In April, I just got a “raise” to “fifty!” I don’t look a day over forty-nine, and some even say I could be as young as forty-seven. I take it all in stride.
Today I am including a few “birthday quotes.”
When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it happened or not.
- Mark Twain
Inside every older person is a younger person - wondering what the hell happened.
- Cora Harvey Armstrong
Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you have not committed.
- Anthony Powell
I have achieved my seventy years in the usual way, by sticking strictly to a scheme of life which would kill anybody else....I will offer here, as a sound maxim, this: That we can't reach old age by another man's road.
- Mark Twain, at his seventieth birthday dinner, in 1905
- Craig
My Dad
About Me
The Edmonds Family
(Dad on the Right)
The Edmonds Family 2
(Dad on the left)
The Edmonds Family 3
3 comments:
Age is the acceptance of the term of years. But maturity is the glory of years.
-Martha Graham
I like this one too. Happy Birthday to your dad.
Be Free,
Lorri
Growing up, I remember two very special birthdays. When Craig and reached the age of 8 or 9, we got to go the steak house made of old train cars. I can't remember the name, maybe Anthony's(old age I guess). The other special occasion was getting to go to Westport to salmon fish. I think we were 10. We would drive down the night before and sleep in Chucks camper. It was a big deal for us. As in most cases, reality is quite a bit different than anticipation. I don't know about Craig, but I would spend the entire day sea sick. I would sleep on the bench, only to wake up, puke, and go back to sleep. My dad would wake me if I had a fish on. My stomach would hurt for days from the dry heaves. I guess I thought it gave my dad pleasure to take us salmon fishing so I kept going. After 6 or 7 trips, I did not really care whether it made him happy or not, I quit.
"Andy's Diner"... and, I was sea sick all day too...
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