58…With A Technicality

I will make this short as possible so I can get on with the business of celebrating my 58th birthday.  I’ve told this story before, but I will tell it again because I think it’s fascinating and it has sort of set the tenure for my life since.  Recording today as my birthday is a technicality.

I was actually born just after midnight on October 16, 1959.  Due to the eccentricities of American culture, we have what is known as Daylight Saving Time.  The October date falls within that time frame each year as opposed to Standard Time.  By law, the delivering physician (by the name of Strunk as I recall) was obligated to record my arrival on Standard Time, or one hour earlier just after 11:00, October 15, 1959.

So be it!

We have a quiet day planned.  I will get much of my usual Sunday chores accomplished, or those once a week tasks that need to be done before the new work week begins.  The highlight will be Sunday Brunch at the William Penn Inn, where I will satisfy my craving for peel ‘n’ eat shrimp and other brunch delicacies.  Then a stop at the liquor store on the way home for some anniversary shopping.  Warrior Queen and I will celebrate 25 years together on Tuesday.  There will be another post to mark that occasion, but we won’t have a proper celebration until time allows next weekend.

As for my wishes for the day, alas, I will always wish for something that is out of my reach.  Yesterday I found myself wanting to spend a part of this day with people who were a big part of my life.   Of course, there would be my parents, my friend from high school, Nick; one of my friends from college, Paul; one of my best college professors and friends I ever had, Dr. Mary Kenny Badami; and the college friend who left us too soon earlier this year, Janey.  This wish is out of reach because they are all gone now.  I just hope that somewhere on another astral plane that Mary and Janey are hoisting a Heineken to me at this very moment.

Beer and alcoholic libations in the hereafter?   Why not?  I refuse to believe the old polka declaration, “in heaven there is no beer.”  I will put this thought forward: if there truly is no beer in heaven there is truly no justice in the universe at all!

So, I will be contented with spending the day with the most wonderful Warrior Queen, and the technicality that even with all my medical problems popping up this year, that the universe is not done with me yet.   Apparently, I still have a purpose to fulfill in this life.

So be it!

Having awoken this morning with the knowledge that my heart is still beating, I can only be grateful for the friends still here, the love I can still feel, and the thought that I have earned the right to do good for another day in this life.

(Thank you for reading.  And thank you God for letting my heart beat one more day.)