Another One?

Tomorrow I celebrate another birthday. I feel torn between I’m glad I’m alive and oh I’m getting so old! I have a couple of birthdays that I remember very vividly. The only birthday I had trouble with was when I turned 25. I was so upset that my mother told me she would never wish me happy birthday again. Now, that’s getting pretty bad! I don’t know why the hangup on that age, only that I thought I would never have any children. But thankfully after my 26th birthday, Christi was born. She was born on Friday before Mother’s Day and it was the best Mother’s Day ever. The next birthday I remember was when I turned 50. I was born 45 minutes after President Franklin Roosevelt died, so I just knew there had to be something special at The Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia. Charles and I packed us a lunch and we headed there. It was a good thing I packed us food, because once the word that President Bill Clinton was going to be there, no one could leave. It was so exciting that there were thousands of people were there. I got frisked and the contents of my purse was emptied. I set off the alarms because I had on too much metal. Ex President Jimmy Carter was there and of course tons of Democrats. My 50th birthday was really special to me. That also reminds me of the time Charles’ mother first met me. Charles was 14 years older than me and she was curious about my age. She didn’t know the age difference, but she knew there was one. I told her I was born 45 minutes after President Roosevelt died. She looked at me, and then said, “Teddy”? I said, “No, Franklin.” Boy, that would have made me really old. We’ve always made a big deal out of our birthdays. I look back and I can’t believe I’ve made it to this age. No, I’m not telling. You’ll have to figure it out. It’s in all the history books. I still feel like I’m still young and I can remember my teenage days like it was yesterday. I am reminded of something Charles said and it applies to me also. He was on a Pool League with a bunch of really young guys one time. Charles said he felt just like one of them until he passed by a mirror. Yeah, the mirror tells it all. Birthdays—I am thankful for each one of them. DR 4/11/14