Looking Back - Part 14 - Another Birthday

Hard to believe that another birthday has arrived -- I'm not sure, but I feel as though I've been having two birthdays a year since I turned 70! How else is it possible that I have gotten this old, this quickly!!

Birthdays have never been particularly important or even interesting for me except when my children were growing up. We did celebrate grandly then with everyone getting some kind of goody that I had made for them -- with four it was a lot less expensive to make the gifts and I did make everything from clothes to toys. And it was even more fun for me, making everyone a special gift. The birthday boy or girl got a stack of goodies, but the others each got one special gift. As a result they all looked forward to each other’s birthdays and it was great fun. My youngest daughter paid me back a couple of years ago when my sons were in Portland for their birthdays and she sent presents for all of us. That was a grand surprise.

However, at my current age, for the most part the only good thing about birthdays is that I’m still around to celebrate one at all. My kids seem to feel pretty much the same way about theirs and other than a call to say “I love you”, we pretty much let them slide by without a lot of hoohah. So when I was taking a writing class a few years ago, one of our assignments was to write about our birthday. I kind of sat staring at my computer screen, hoping some marvelous inspiration would float down and invade my thoughts. When nothing happened and the week was nearly gone, I decided to take a look at the websites that had been included with our instructions.

I discovered that P. B. Shelley and Louie Armstrong had both been born on August 4, too, and I wondered why the same muse wasn’t hovering over my shoulder. There were a number of football players, but that didn’t offer any particular inspiration. Then when I looked at events that had occurred on my birthday, I saw momentous things like Howard Stern withdrawing from the New York gubernatorial race and a truck carrying millions of bees overturning on a New York parkway. Amazing! As I scrolled down the page I saw a name that I knew! Kathy Whitworth, a girl who was born in the small west Texas town where I grew up and whom I had gone to school with! I surfed around and discovered she was among the world’s first leading women golfers and had won one of her first prestigious tournaments on my birthday! I’m pretty sure she didn’t plan it that way though.

I also discovered that while warming up before the 5th inning Yankee Dave Winfield accidentally killed a seagull! And Prince’s album Purple Rain went to #1. Carl Lewis won a gold medal in the 100-meter dash in the summer Olympics in Los Angeles and France performed a nuclear test. John Lennon and Yoko began recording “Double Fantasy”, Oliver North was assigned to White House duty and President Carter established the Department of Energy. Anne Frank was arrested in Amsterdam by the Nazis and the first train of Jews departed for Auschwitz from Mechelen, Belgium. And Dom Perignon invented champagne. And all on my birth date – August 4!

The assignment had turned into an intriguing one, a great history lesson -- and a chance to observe and reflect on the funny, mundane, tragic and everything in between that has taken place on just this one day in history. An opportunity to become aware of so much more than just a birthday, but a date to be celebrated and cherished as each day of all our lives should be.

Last year my birthday turned from the usual quiet day to an incredible one when my son, Adam, surprised me with an incredible seaplane flight over the entire Seattle area! And it was breathtaking! I even got to sit in the co-pilot's seat and had the most incredible view of all!

So, while I've been preparing for the upcoming day, I took a look back at me and this was what I came up with to celebrate my birthday on this August 4. A day that I will be celebrating with three of my children -- David is coming from Dallas, Kerith from Santa Rosa and, of course, Adam.

Sylvia Rae McCarty Kirkwood
My mother admired the actress, Sylvia Sidney.
My father’s name was Raymond – he wanted a boy.
Irish, skinny, freckled, too-curly auburn hair,
My relatives called me Priss, that says it all,
I was a feisty, prissy little girl,
But neither family nor relatives ever knew
The other little girl under the curls,
Or the hurts she kept hidden.
Then it was Bucky, at least until the braces went on and came off.
Kirkwood symboled a new woman, married to the Olympic hero,
Sylvia disappeared behind him, became Ninkles – no, don’t ask.
Ah, but then came the real gifts!
Four beautiful gifts that encompassed the best of both
The hero and the prissy, feisty girl.
Now the hair is white, but the feisty remains,
Hopefully less prissy, but not less spirited.
A journey through the names tells the story,
My story, and what a great story it’s been!