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August 25, 2019

”It’s a wonder that you’re even here”

            This year I remembered my birthday without any help, but I forgot how old I was. My sister-in-law straightened me out. When Dennis called to wish me a happy birthday, I told him I had just turned 69. The Hayter siblings can’t keep up with one another’s age.

            Two minutes after Dennis hung up, his wife, Dardon Ann, called to tell me that I am 70. She was all giddy about setting me straight. The girl is one year younger than me at 69. So, I had to be 70.

            Big deal. Who cares? If you ask a youngster how old he is he generally adds a half a year to his age. There is only one day in your life that you’re a half of a year old, yet, a week after kid’s birthday he gains a whole half a year. I didn’t do that, because I was bad with fractions. I wasn’t good at counting fingers either. – “Tell the man how old you are, Mark.” I’d hold up three fingers and Mom would say, “He’s five.” I didn’t know a lot about numbers because I hadn’t yet started school.

            The Hayters never went to kindergarten, because it cost money. Had it been free, Mom would’ve shoved our buns out the door. “Here’s a box of Crayolas. Get outta here!” I didn’t even know there was such a place as kindergarten. We have since evolved to the point where we now have pre-K. By the time a PreK kid gets to the first grade, he knows all his animal sounds. He can make the sound of a giraffe. I knew the sounds of Wyatt Earp’s pistol and Luke McCain’s fast firing rifle, but I wasn’t good with my animal sounds. I’m 70, and I still don’t know what noise a giraffe makes, unless it has flatulence.

            When I started school, I didn’t even know the alphabet. All I knew was A B C D Lmnop.  Today, I dare you to start school without knowing your letters beyond the “P.”  

            Fortunately, I was a fast learner. NOT! Things got complicated pretty quickly. Fortunately, I caught up around the third grade. I owe it all to Mrs. Vogel. I loved that old lady. She was probably 32 at the time.

           

            One thing that has made me smarter than I really am is the Internet. To demonstrate, I can tell you the month with the most birthdays. It’s September. Last year, September ninth had the most birthdays and September 19 the second most. It has something to do with September falling about nine months after Christmas and New Years. I can’t imagine what cold weather and having time off from work has to do with birthing babies.

            The fewest birthdays of the year, fall on the holidays. In fact, there are more birthdays on February 29, than there are in all major holidays put together. Apparently, nine months before a major holiday is a real downer for most people.

            The most important thing about one’s birth date has to do with the start of school. When I was young, school never started until after Labor Day. And, you couldn’t start the first grade until you were six-years-old. After that, you could start the first grade as many times as you wanted. Since my birthday was in late August, I had just turned six a couple of weeks before school started. I was, generally, one of the youngest persons in class. That was the case through my entire public schooling. 

            I graduated from Pasadena High School in 1967, at the age of 17. Had I been born two to three weeks later, I would’ve graduated with the class of ’68 at the age of 18. That would’ve changed my medley of friends. Had I started school a year later, none of my friends would’ve even known me. Tommy Cromeens, Johnny Sutton, Jimmy Hull, David Angie, Vicki Higgason, Kay Cross… none of them would’ve been able to pick me out of a lineup. And, worst of all, had I asked Kay Cross to marry me, she would’ve said, “Marry you? I don’t even know you! Get away from me kid.”

            See the significance of one’s date of birth? If I may go a step further, the likelihood of you being born is rare, rarer, rarest. After all, we are each the product of one out of a million male cells racing to meet a designated location at the appropriate moment. Say, during the race, another swimming cell shoved you out of the way. You would not be here. Or, maybe you’d be here, but you might be a girl instead of a boy. Or, you might look more like your dad than your mother. Who can know these things?

            Bottom line? It’s wonderment that any of us ever got born. My birth may have prevented a Hall of Fame quarterback from showing up. Or a sharp young lady might’ve taken my place, and end up discovering a legitimate cure for baldness. Instead, the world ended up with me… and, with you. While we had no choice as to whether we wanted to be born or not, we do have a lot to say about what we do with the rest of our time here.

            Now that I’ve been ungraciously made aware of my real age, I’d like to say that from this day forward, “the world is my oyster.” However, I must first go to the Internet to discover the source of that weird saying. -- Okay, I’m back again. The oyster thing is from Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor.” Somehow a knife is involved. You’ll have to research the rest of it, ‘because I’m outta time. – Until next time.  

           

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