happy birthday to me

Several years ago (and I will tell you the number if you have that type of curiosity), I was born in Mast Hospital  in what would soon seem to me to be the big city of Myrtle Point, Oregon.

Of course, it was not a big city.  But when you come from an even smaller town like Powers, Myrtle Point seems large.

In the 1940s and 1950s Powers was still a going concern of about 1500 people.  Most families, including my father, were involved in the area's prime industry -- cutting and trucking timber.  We were a lumbering family as I would come to say.

We often have mixed memories of our childhood.  Mine are all good.  That may be because I was surrounded by loving relatives.  My grandparents' home was a veritable mini-farm with baby chicks to enthrall a boy -- and a grandmother who could pluck a chicken in record time while recovering the not-yet-shelled eggs from the hen's uterus for use in some very rich custards.

I was a dreamer.  A day-dreamer, actually.  Several of my teachers (and a few subsequent employers) complained that, even though I was a good student, I had trouble keeping my mind on the task at hand.  I was usually thinking of someplace filled with far more adventure.

My father was wise enough to see that the timber harvests were coming to a close.  We moved from Powers to the Portland area in the late 1950s where there were no vast forests to be trekked and no chickens to be plucked.  But it was a move that taught me adventure can be found anywhere by pulling up stakes and moving.

And that is why my father is responsible for me sitting at this computer on a beautiful morning in Mexico relating a truncated version of who I am on this my natal day.

When I opened my email this morning, I found birthday greetings from a very good friend I have known since grade school, one from a reader from Germany, and a gift book from my mother.

I have no celebration plans other than a trip to Manzanillo to pick up my dry cleaning.  I will then top off the day by having dinner with a friend at a stuff potato restaurant in Villa Obregón.  Most likely without my white tie ensemble.

It is just another day on my journey through life.