Photo by Bill Stokes
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper and Phyllis, fresh from the keeper’s great-grandson Tyler’s 11th birthday party in his parents Mazomanie garage, are impressed anew with the significance of the annual ritualistic celebration we use to mark the passage of our personal time.
For one day each year we count up our years, perhaps with some impatience when there are only 11 of them and there are daunting adventures hanging out there in the years to come.
For a few early-life years, counting them becomes a neutral thing—life will go on forever so who needs to keep score?
But then one birthday makes the point that you are no longer a spring chicken and there is the possibility that if you are lucky you might even get old.
Birthday cake and candles, presents to unwrap, a happy song to sing, all make for a great day no matter how old you are. (Thankfully, the tradition of a birthday spanking seems to have faded from the scene, but the keeper remembers birthdays when the uncles came at him with wicked grins.)
The keeper and Phyllis wish Tyler the happiest of birthdays and inform him that if a birthday party is ever held in a garage for the keeper with the appropriate number of birthday cake candles, a fire extinguisher should be handy, maybe even have the fire department on standby.
