Another birthday ...

My parents weren't really "into" birthday parties--so when Joyce asked me yesterday about the parties I'd had as a kid, I had to say there weren't any. Oh, the first eleven years of my life we lived near my maternal grandparents, so they were always involved--we would go to their place--or they to ours--and they would always give me a check, too: $1.08 on my 8th birthday, $1.09 on my ninth. That was a lot of money for me, back in 1952 and 1953 (the relevant years). Mostly I wanted a new cap gun.

And Mom would do a dinner for each son on his birthday--we got to pick the entree and the kind of cake. I was very imaginative then: hot dogs for the meal, yellow cake with chocolate icing for the dessert.

Everyone would sing "Happy Birthday," and at the end of the song, Dad would add--in his superb tenor voice (I kid you not)--"And many more of them ..." I now sing that line at all family birthdays, though without Dad's artistry, that's for sure.

Yesterday--Sunday--birthday number 74 for me--the day began in our normal Sunday fashion. I got up and prepared the sourdough bread dough, then cleaned up, and we headed out on our weekly "rounds": Panera for a light breakfast (bagel for both of us) and reading the New York Times, then to two grocery stores, Acme and Heinen's, for the week's goodies and necessaries.

Home. Put things away. Shaped and baked the bread. Took my weekly pic and posted it on FB, as is my wont.

yesterday's bread pic

Then, after lunch (about 1:00 p.m), I headed upstairs and crashed for two hours. (Oh, do I love a nap in these, uh, "later" years!)

Got a phone call from my two brothers right after I emerged from the arms of Morpheus--my nephew, Rick, was there, too--always fun to banter with him.

A little before 5:30 we headed down to 3 Palms, a pizzeria here in town, where we met our son (Steve), daughter-in-law (Melissa), and two stellar grandsons (Logan, 13; Carson, 9) and pigged on pizza and laughed ourselves silly. The place was jammed when we got there, but after only about five minutes of waiting, the Perfect Table opened up, and there we ... partied on.

grandson Carson checks out my pen at 3 Palms

Then it was back to our place for the few gifts (I asked for none, got a couple, was grateful). They sang "Happy Birthday," and Steve and his sons added "and many more of them."

Before we met them at 3 Palms, Joyce had given me her great present--a poem she'd written for me. She asked me to read it aloud, and I did pretty well for a Weepy Old Dude. Words are breath; breath is life and love. You know ...

More rollicking fun while they were here. I found myself reciting "The Cremation of Sam McGee" for a reason I can't recall right now. Carson was especially delighted by it--and who isn't?

"Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so ..."

Gotta love that line! In my last dozen years or so at Harmon Middle School in Aurora, we used to read The Call of the Wild--and related Klondike Gold Rush stuff, including "Cremation." Kids would memorize it, too. As I did ...

(Link to whole poem)

As I think about it now, poems about cremation seem a bit less amusing than they did thirty years ago. Sizzling, especially, seems a bit grim.

But we will not escape that Final Sizzle, will we? (Or that Final Whatever?)

Nice way to end a birthday blog, eh? Old Guys can be such Debbie Downers!