Visit NaBloPoMo

Well, I'm doing it again this year. The National Blog Posting Month---I'm going to try to post a new post every day for the month of November. I did it last year and it went quite well---and I had a good time. So here we go again.

Truth be told---this is actually my birthday present from my wife. As is probably known, we aren't long on cash. Actually, things tend to run pretty thin here, most of the time. If it weren't for my wonderful parents, the kids would probably be going to school in clothes they wore in the third grade. (Which would be more bearable for the fourth grader than for the graduating Senior).

But time is also tight, too. With a household of people who long for a little companionship for the ever-absent-at-work-trying-to-earn-us-money dad, a chance to pull away for something as solitary as writing can be asking a bit much. That's why my posting has had to become more and more infrequent.

So when the big 41 rolled around last week, this was the present I asked for.

It's not the first time I've requested something like this, though. For one of my birthdays early in our married life I asked for an afternoon at the Barns and Nobel. I have all my life loved book stores, begging my parents for visits to them when I was a kid and we ventured into the big city. But the book stores I'd always known were little hole in the wall affairs compared to when B&N moved into town. On our first visit I was in rapture. Rows upon rows upon rows of books and booky things. The inventor of this needed a big hug. From me.

However, even though my wife is a bookish person too, it soon became very evident that I could spend hours longer in there than she could. Our visits always felt a bit cut short to me. So my next birthday, that was her present---an unencumbered afternoon in the bookstore with nary a prompt to leave. It was bliss.

(My wife reading over my shoulder tells me that she only vaguely remembers this. She says, actualy, she's not sure she remembers it at all, we were in there so often. Yet, it is one of my cherished memories.)

So this year when my forty first rolled around, short on money but long on love and self sacrifice, she gives again.

For forty one. That's a 40, with a 1, by the way. Did you catch that? And that 1 is like a stick---like taking 40 and giving it a bat to hit you around the head with.

Yet, when it comes to age, I must say I want to be like my mom. Last weekend she invited us out to eat at the new Wendy's in town. Before we got there, she had pulled into the parking lot in her little white Aveo and a big Ford F150 driven by a gray haired woman backed right into her, hitting her just ahead of the front driver side door. When we pulled in, the Officer was just arriving to take statements. Mom was shaken but no one was hurt.

Once we were all in side, there were some church friends eating that my mom went over and talked to. When they asked what was going on my mom said, "An old lady backed into me". An old lady, she said. My mom, a grandmother seven times over, was talking about being hit by an 'old lady'. However ironic that may be, I find it inspiring.

We keep asking ourselves the same question, "Why are so many people our same age getting so old?"

Then I hear people talking about Barak Obama and saying that they think he might be to young and inexperienced. Too young---at 47 years old, they are thinking he's too young with the same shake of the head as when your baby child gets their driver's license or when you go to parent teacher conferences and get a look at your kids teachers.

Forty seven and just a pup---now that's an America I can live in.

See you tomorrow night!