49

It’s always around my birthday that I get somewhat nostalgic and wax philosophic about my younger years. I’m not old by any stretch of the imagination but at a soon-to-be 49, I’m no longer a little boy either.

I have to smile thinking about several lines from an old James Taylor song called,
“I was a fool to care” – (if you know the album title right now, you’re my age)

I wish I was an old man

And love was through with me

I wish I was a baby on my mama’s knee

I wish I was a freight train

Moving down the line

Just a’ keeping track of time

Without all these memories . . .

I have so many sweet memories from long ago: the phone call from my mother asking me what kind of cake I wanted for my birthday (she made many), the apple pie my father would bring home from Ware Pratt (a men’s clothing store, long gone) where he signed me up in their Birthday Club entitling me to a pie every January 10^th until I turned 13.

(and yeah, I’d give my twin sister m~ a slice)

So, so damn sweet.

Sometimes I have to wonder if I wasn’t a fool to care about such things; caring turns into sentimentality turns into heartache and ends with something sad and bittersweet.

Looking back, I realize I did care about those things. Dearly.

These are just words connecting my thoughts tonight, folks, and nothing real deep.

Whenever there’s a pause in my writing routine, I get back to square one by house cleaning and moving furniture; it’s my own personal literary feng shui if you will.
The warmest of wishes I send out to my twin sister, my own flesh and blood.
The rivers we’ve traveled run deep.
Happy Birthday, Moe.
I pray our 49^th year finds us healthy, full of happiness and covered with more love than we both know what to do with.
I guess this post has turned out to be something of a prayer.
And I welcome that . . .

~m

ps. my sister now signs her emails m~ . . . 😆

pps. thanks to my dear friends, Laho & Liho for the cholesterol-inducing breakfast.
It was awesome.

ppps. Happy Birthday, Guinness!!!!!