Making the Most of 75!

Wind, rain and snow with a 38° high temperature is expected here in Flagstaff on this Monday.  It is helpful for me to think that just a few hundred miles south of us, in Casa Grande, it will be 69° and in Tucson it will be 73° today.  It is winter time and it is February and Flagstaff is 7000-plus feet elevation.

Abraham Lincoln was born today in 1809. My mother-in-law was born today in 1924.  A friend of mine was born yesterday in 1944.  I was born last Thursday, February 8, 1943.  My nephew (Josh) was born on the same day (Feb 8) but not the same year.  My great granddaughter Addison had a belated 2nd year birthday party on Saturday (Addie and her Dad were born on the last day of January—very, very close to February).  George Washington was born February 22, 1732. My niece was born yesterday in 1979.  My oldest son, my paternal grandmother, and my youngest brother were all born in February, too.  Lots of folk were born in February:  Thomas Edison, James Dean, Charles Darwin, Galileo, Ronald Reagan, Steve Jobs, Johnny Cash, Charles Dickens, Rosa Parks, and even Elizabeth Taylor. A lot of great and famous people were born in February and my grandchildren, Ethan and Eleni, apparently count me as one of those people!

Yesterday, our son Luke (and the children) baked and frosted a birthday cake for me.  Ethan and Eleni placed the candles on the cake (using seven candles to indicate 7 decades around the perimeter and 1 in the middle to represent a half-decade, following their mother Kim’s suggestion instead of sticking 75 candles in the cake).  I really didn’t need to worry about that possibility because Eleni was quick to say that they didn’t have that many candles in the house! Luke, with Ethan and Eleni watching closely, lit the candles, and then they all sang “happy birthday” to me.  I blew out all the candles—it took two or three puffs (I figured it was the altitude here in Flagstaff that prevented me from getting them all with just one puff).  Eleni instructed everyone that I was to taste the cake first and it was the most scrumptious I’ve ever tasted.  Ethan brought me a little medal reading “Birthday Boy” and Eleni called me to the keyboard where she played “Happy Birthday” just for her grandad.  Now, I know for sure that 75 is going to be one of my best years yet!