It was 26 years ago today ...

Front left: Lindsay Brown (sister), Vernay Reber (best friend), up the steps Karen Dill, Michael Goodling, Brendan Mackin, Dunham Blackwell, Cameron Leonard (looking "over it" with a striped shirt). On the right side: Mary Esther Likis, Francie Likis and me with saddle shoes on.


... that this photo was taken on our back stoop in Auburn, Ala. on my 10th birthday.

So today I am 36. It has been a peaceful, beautiful day with the exception of a hackberry tree that was removed from my front yard this morning. It was sick and dying and I knew it would meet this fate, but hated that it had to happen today. The cats were very distraught as this was the tree where they watched birds roost. They had looks on their faces like, "What is happening in our world?" Trying to explain the harsh reality that hackberry trees are one of Mother Nature's great mistakes (limbs are heavier than the trunk can support) was obviously pointless.

I am reminded today of birthday's past. My maternal grandmother, Mimi, used to send me a Laura Ingles Wilder book every year for my birthday when I was a child. My paternal grandmother, Granny Brown, would send me a card with a five-dollar-bill in it and both gifts meant the world to me. When I was 12 I got a Sears 10-speed Free Spirit bike from my parents that was probably the best gift I remember from childhood. That same year my sister conned my grandfather into giving her $10 so she could by me my great love Adam Ant's "Strip" on vinyl (yes, vinyl) from Oz Records. Looking back, I'm sort of amazed that my parents allowed me to listen to a record so full of sexual innuendo.

When I turned 22, I shared a great old bungalow with Clare while in college at Montevallo and she made me a crazy multi-colored cake with psychedelic food coloring swirls and gave me a hot toddie kit (whiskey, lemon juice, honey). There was a point to this since I had a roaring case of bronchitis complete with fever and delirium which was made all the more bizarre by my friend, Paul, coming to my bedroom window that day to deliver a mix tape he had made for the occasion.

This year I joined the ranks of the technologically advanced and bought a 4GB iPod Nano for my birthday and am already enjoying it immensely.

Today I reflect on many great birthdays and am very thankful for the best presents: a wonderful family, great friends and my beloved pets -- they beat a 10-speed bike any old day.



Here's what else happened today in history:

1727
Sir Isaac Newton - physicist, mathematician and astronomer - died in London.

1815
Napoleon Bonaparte entered Paris, beginning his Hundred Days rule.

1852
Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel about slavery, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," was published.

1969
Rock musician John Lennon of the Beatles married Yoko Ono in Gibraltar.

1976
Newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was convicted of armed robbery for her part in a San Francisco bank holdup.

1987
The Food and Drug Administration approved the sale of AZT, a drug shown to prolong the lives of some AIDS patients.

1996
A jury in Los Angeles convicted Erik and Lyle Menendez of first-degree murder in the shotgun slayings of their millionaire parents.

1999
Bertrand Piccard of Switzerland and Brian Jones of Britain became the first aviators to fly a hot-air balloon around the world nonstop.

2003
U.S. and British forces invaded Iraq from Kuwait. (Thanks Dubyah!)


I share my birthday with:

Henrik Ibsen
Holly Hunter
Carl Reiner
Spike Lee
Slim Jim Phantom (guitarist for The Stray Cats)
Michael Rapaport
Marcia Ball
William Hurt