Happy Birthday to me

Yep. 51 years ago today I left the dark, warm confines of my mother’s womb and fell out into the arms of a doctor and the light of day. The first words out of my Daddy’s mouth when he saw me was, “that son of a bitches head looks like a tabernacle!”

Eisenhower was President. I am old enough to remember the day Kennedy was shot. I can remember when Oswald was shot. I can remember when Martin Luther King was shot. I can remember the day Bobby Kennedy was shot. 

I was just a couple of days shy of my first birthday the day the music died. Of course I can’t remember that.

Politically I have evolved ass backwards. The old saying goes something like “if you are not a liberal when you are young you have no heart but if you are not a conservative when you are old you have no brain.” But I considered myself a conservative up until the war in Iraq started. The last eight years have changed my thinking in profound ways. So many times I have been mighty ashamed of the hell I gave Bill Clinton.

Theologically I like to think I am just constantly evolving. I believe that the blood of Jesus really did wash away the sins of the world. Where I fall out with my brethren is that I do not believe that you have to believe that in order to make it so. I was considered a Universalist long before I even realized there was such a thing.

Aging is weird. I really didn’t give much thought to birthdays until I was about 48. It was around that time that the guy in the mirror staring back at me seemed to be someone else. I started having these silly feelings of anxiety. Like I am afraid sometimes of I don’t know what and I don’t know why.

My sister got me the CD/DVD of Dave Matthews at The Gorge. I was watching it late last night when he played “Where are you going?” and was so glad my wife had fallen asleep. My damn throat started getting sore and my eyes were tearing up. It is that kind of shit that drives me crazy. Just how much softer can an old man get?

But I will march on with more life on this earth behind me than there is in front of me. I have taken care of one small detail that will come in handy on my 2nd birthday.

Buddy Don wrote my epitaph for me. Thanks again Buddy.

Tonight my dear mama will make me my favorite food. Her hamburgers are indescribable. I am a hamburger connoisseur and believe me there ain’t no hamburger on this planet like the hamburger my mama makes.

And by God I think I will have two of ‘em.