Three Score Years

In 1954, March 24 fell on a Wednesday. Not very much eventful happened on that day. There appears to have been little of note, nor of historical importance that occurred. Truth be told, I don't remember much about it at all.

Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window was playing in movie theatres for the first of many times, and Doris Day had the most popular song on Billboard's chart. It was called Secret Love.

In Brooklyn, NY, the Pescow Family welcomed a little girl, whom they would name "Donna", and in Hollywood, CA, the family of actor John Carradine and Sonia Sorel was joined by little Robert Reed Carradine. I was born on the same day in Vancouver, BC. Around the world, about 318,000 other people were born as well.

It will have been 21,915 days since our year zero birthday, and to date, our hearts have beaten some two billion, two hundred and nine million times, with the possible exception of our first encounter with a jack-in-the-box.

David Suzuki turned seventeen that day, Steve McQueen was twenty-four, and Norman Fell became thirty. Clyde Barrow would have turned 45, but things happened. Things had also happened to Harry Houdini and to Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. Ronald Lee Ermey was ten years old, Queen Elizabeth I had been dead for exactly 351 years, and her latest successor, Elizabeth II, had worn the British crown for three hundred and three days. It would be nineteen years more before Jim Parsons' first "bazinga".

Lawrence Ferlinghetti was thirty-five years old, and tomorrow, he will be ninety-five.His heart has beaten three billion, four hundred and ninety-eight million times! Keep up the good work, my friend.

When I was in my teens and my early twenties, I didn't think that I was going to survive until I was thirty, so in point of fact, I've already lived twice as long as I expected. If I could stop the clock right now, and stay exactly where I am, it would not displease me, but it seems that I'm falling through time a bit faster every day. That's all right; sixty is a milestone, it's not a destination. So far, so good...

So, to Donna, Robert, the rest of our 318,000 and me, I wish a Happy Sixtieth Birthday. Happy birthday to all who have shared this date with us through all of time. To those who couldn't be here, we've saved you a chair.

To the rest of you, thank you for being part our lives. We're not done yet!