Happy Birthday

Today is my birthday.  So now you know what I was doing in nineteen forty-seven.

It was a very good year if you were Buffalo Bob (Howdy Doody premiered on NBC), Groucho Marx ("You Bet Your Life" premiered on ABC radio), the CIA (the Company went public under a new name),  the damn Yankees (they beat Jackie Robinson and the Dodgers in 7 games in the first televised World Series), Howard Hughes (he flew the Spruce Goose for the first and last time and didn't start growing his fingernails and urinating in mason jars until several years later), India and Pakistan (both declared independence from Great Britain after peace marches led earlier in the year by Ghandi), or me (the first born finally arrived after 11 years of parental infertility).

It wasn't such a great year if you were Arab (the U.N. voted to partition Palestine), a member of the U. S. Screen Actors Guild (which implemented an anti-communist loyalty oath), or a resident of Snag, Yukon Territory (where record North American temperatures dipped to -81º F).

These fellow baby boomers will turn 64 this year, at least the ones that are still kicking:

• My running heroes (Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers, and Jim Ryun, even though he was voted Most Conservative member of the US House by National Review in 2006));  
• World leaders with the best names (Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia, and Inky Mark, Chinese-born member of Canada's House of Commons); 
• Respected writers (Stephen King, Salman Rushdie, Dave Barry, Tom Boswell); 
• Musicians (Arlo Guthrie, Carlos Santana, EmmyLou Harris, George Clinton, Ry Cooder, Don Henley, Keith Moon, David Bowie, Marvin Lee Aday [Meat Loaf]); 
• Actors (Kevin Kline, Billy Crystal, Glenn Close, Rob Reiner, Sally Struthers); 
• Athletes (Dick Fosbury, whose Fosbury Flop inspired my backyard high jump efforts; Lew Alcindor, who I saw play under that name my freshman year in college; and Jim Plunkett, who I watched eat every night my sophomore year at training table meals during football season, where I was a hasher in the mess hall); 
• Respected public servants (Hillary Clinton); 
• and others who you can judge for yourself. once federal courts finish with them (John Corzine, Tom Delay, William Jefferson).  

Happy Birthday to all.