How Did I Celebrate My Birthday?

It was my birthday this week and I took some time to review my life, especially in relation to birthdays. At least this is what I told my wife, when she asked why I hadn’t loaded the dishwasher yet.

A few years ago I received a book of quotes from Mr. Rogers, the children’s television personality from here in the United States. One of my favorite quotes is, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” I have never been good at birthdays, so I keep trying.

When I was 12, I was out riding my bike on my birthday. Like most 12 year old boys, I wanted to be a cowboy, and so I pretended my bicycle was a horse. And like most cowboys, I held a long piece of grass in my mouth. I am not sure where I saw a cowboy engaging in this blade of grass chewing behavior, but it was probably on television.

It was a wonderful warm summer day, and the breeze felt good as I rode my bike at a full-out gallop. I rounded a corner and the hooves of my horse slipped on loose gravel. I was elated that I had not suffered too badly and escaped with only a few minor scrapes.

Unfortunately, that entire day I had a scratchy throat. Nothing seemed to help. Not drinking water, not drinking a carbonated sugar-filled beverage, not even the homemade ice-cream roll my mother made for my celebration.

At the end of the night, mom asked me if everything was alright. I finally told her about my scratchy throat and explained that it felt like I had a sliver in my throat. She rolled her eyes, grabbed a flashlight and looked in my mouth, all the while muttering about my odd way of describing things.

Then she stopped. She stepped back and looked at me, and then looked down my throat again. In absolute amazement she called my father; “Come look at this, he has a sliver stuck in his throat.”

That sentence was repeated a few more times at the hospital emergency room to nurses and doctors and then they repeated it again once they looked at my throat. It seems that when I fell off my bike, that long piece of grass had slid down my throat and a small piece had impaled itself into my flesh.

 I am not so good at birthdays.

A few years later, as a college student, I was working at a camp. I stopped into the office early in the morning to pick up something I needed and the office manager stopped me and handed me some mail. It was a letter from my mother. I put it in my pocket and promptly forgot about it until lunch time. Then, when I had the chance, I sat down and read the letter. Mom started out the letter by saying, “If I timed this right, you should be getting this letter on your birthday.” I stopped short, realizing that, indeed, it was my birthday. I had squandered half of the day in ignorance, not realizing it was my birthday.

I am not so good at birthdays.

Therefore, I decided some time ago, to keep working at my birthday, specifically my 26^th birthday. All year long, when people ask how old I am, I say I am 25. Then when my birthday comes, if it is a success, I will move on. So far, they haven’t been a success.

This year was no exception. It started out wonderful, with a trip back home to the county fair, with my wife, daughters, and a couple of their friends. I visited with my mom, and my sister, and her granddaughter, who developed quite an attachment to Eldest. (Even though my sister is the youngest in the family, she is older than I). It was a wonderful day. We ate funnel cake, since birthdays and cake go together. We bought some maple syrup to pour over homemade waffles (I love breakfast, and real maple syrup is amazing).

Things were looking quite successful.

Then in the evening, the family and I went to a baseball game. My alma mater, Roberts Wesleyan College, was holding an alumni picnic before the game; it was great to see friends. My youngest and middle daughter spent a little time with the college mascot, Reggie, and there was food.

Things were looking quite successful.

It was a chilly night, with temperatures in the mid 50’s (F). This was not a bad thing, since I sat between Beloved and Eldest, and they snuggled close to keep warm. I like snuggling with family almost as much as I like breakfast. But, about halfway through the game, it began to rain. A light rain, just enough to make us all damp and to make it feel even colder.

Not only that, but the hometown team was losing, by quite a significant margin.

I am not so good at birthdays.

So again, my birthday wasn’t a success, but I will “try, try again.” It’s tough being twenty-five again, but I will persevere.

Giants and Tigers: Who Will Win the World Series

It is the time for Baseball’s World Series. For the past two years, I have predicted the winner of the Super Bowl with 100% accuracy. I have accurately predicted the wrong team to win every time. This fall I have decided to turn my uncanny ability towards predicting the winner of the World Series.

My first step was to learn as much about baseball as I could in a few minutes. Apparently, baseball has its roots in a prehistoric game where one person, the hurler, hurled rocks at another person, the hitter; the other person would swat the rocks away with a stick. If the person was struck enough times, he was out and required medical attention. If, however, the hitter actually hit the rock, then a bunch of people standing behind the hurler would chase the rock down and throw it at the hitter as he made a mad dash for the safety of his cave.

Over the eons, baseball has evolved into a complex sport, with strategies, uniforms, managers, bright lights, peanuts, popcorn, and cotton candy. As people became more civil and more intellectually abstract, they stopped trying to hit each other with rocks and instead created an imaginary square in front of the hitter to hurl the rock through. If the hurler makes it through that imaginary space, then a strike is called. The person who decides whether the hurled ball is a strike or a ball is a direct descendent from the caveman, he is the ump. He roars with a Neolithic holler, “Steeeeeeeeeeerike” or growls with a Cro-Magnan roar, “Baaahhhhhhhhlll”.

Instead of the hitter running to his cave, or house, the rules call for an imaginary home to be marked with a white house shaped plastic cutout laying on the ground. If the hitter makes it all the way around the field and to home, he scores a ‘run’, which is a translation of the caveman phrase, “him run fast and make it home without a concussion.”

Each team has certain freedoms regarding how to decorate their playing fields and their players, but things have to be uniform. The distance between each base is the same at each field. Each teams player decorations can be different colors and designs, but they are still called uniforms. The balls that have replaced the rocks are all the same size and weight, and made from the same materials.

After all this exhausting research on our national past time, I had little time to consider who would be the victor in this year’s competition, until I realized who was playing. The Giants versus the Tigers? This is a no brainer. In a prehistoric game of hurling rocks at ones opponent, Giants would have to be the victor every time.