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!



 

A New Brave New World

I have no excuses; the blog is back, and has been away for far too long. Well, I've missed it.

I keep looking at the date of my last post (March 30, 2013), and asking why it's taken me so long to get back. It's not that I'm too busy, because this takes no time at all. Nor is it that it's not convenient. Like Louis Lamour, I can write anywhere, and now, I have the perfect tool to do just that.

A few months ago, I wandered into my favourite purveyor of bright, shiny things, and I purchased a pretty, little seven-inch tablet device called a Proscan 7. It is considered a toy for especially dense children, and has been reviewed poorly by adult buyers who were expecting to get an I-Pad for under a hundred bucks. It was an experiment, though. I wanted to determine if I needed a tablet, and I do. It's taken on all of the tasks of my poor, tired, little smart phone, with the sole exception of calling the home planet and keeping in touch with my own people.

It was also supposed to let me decide what I need to look for when I'm shopping for a better device, and in this matter, it has been a complete failure! The little bastard appears to be perfectly sufficient to my requirements.

If I had one complaint, it was that the on-screen keyboard was too dainty for my thick, clumsy digits, and that typing was difficult and tedious. I've found an optional case/keyboard/stand for my wee beastie, and now, I don't even have that to whine about. No, sadly there will be no upgrade in the forseeable future. It's even taken the starch out of my best excuse for not blogging - even with its case, it is as portable as a paperback book.

So, I suppose that the only reason I have left for not writing would be that I've got nothing left to say. Regular visitors will tell you that's never stopped me before.

I guess that this is in the nature of a warning to all of you, and the warning is this: look out - I appear to be back.

Have you missed me?