IT'S ALL IN THE DASH "-"

Happy Birthday Hank!!!!!!!!Today is Henry Aarons birthday.  It's also the birthday of Roger Staubach.  I have no problem remembering these two great athlete's birthdays.  Why you ask?   Because they share their birth dates with me.  That's right,  we were all born on February 5th.  Did you ever wonder what the parents of famous people thought when their children were born?  When Hank was born I bet being known as the home run king of the major leagues never crossed the minds of his parents.  Same with Roger.  The Staubach's thoughts of a Heisman Trophy was as far from their minds as the sun is from the moon.  These parents were just like the rest of us parents,  they were to busy counting fingers and toes  through the happy tears in their eyes to think of such things.  So why do we place so much emphasis on dates?

It's funny in a strange kind of way, the dates we remember.  I soon will be sharing  stories about my very first best friend with you.  We met at the age of 4 and were together almost everyday until the age of 7 when he moved to Colorado. He moved back  to Georgia around the age of 12 but he now lived on the other side of town.  We remained friends but we had grown up and grown apart to some extent so we were never as close as before.  The funny thing is after all these years I still remember his birth date,  December 2.  Why did that stick with me?  I have no idea.  My wife and my Dad share the share the same birth dates  February 16th , and Austin, our first grandson shares his birth date with my Mom, his great grandmother,  and also with his grandmother on his Dad's side, August 25th.  If you ask me the birth dates of my children,  these dates will rolls off my tongue without even engaging my brain as I'm sure your children's birth dates come easily to your mind.  I once had a teacher tell our class that out of the 29 children in our class,  it was a 90% chance that two of us would share the same birth date.  I know,,,,,,,Sound strange but it's true!

And it's not only birth dates but other dates as well. How about anniversaries? Once when Peggy and I were discussing the date we got married on  I told her June 17th would always be special to me.  She responded "That's  nice,  I like June 17th also,  but I would hope June 21st would mean more to you because that's the date we got married?"  I could tell her feeling were hurt,,,,,,, but doggone-it,,,,,,,,,, so were mine.  She couldn't even remember the date we got married on.   After an hour or so of heated discussion I decided to pull out our Marriage Certificate to show her once and for all when we got married.  So off I go and pull out the certificate.  Oh no....I was wrong!!!!!!!  The only thing that saved me from complete humiliation was the fact that she was wrong too.  Our wedding date was actually the 19th of June.

So why all the fuss about dates?   Do they really matter?  I know today I will get phone calls and I will get birthday wishes from friends and family on facebook.  And I really appreciate that people will take the time out of their day to think about me but really after 63 years, I would just as soon forget my birthday.  As my Mom use to say " It's hard getting old,  there ain't no such thing as an old sissy."  And, as was usually the case when mom said something...she was right.

And so the message to my Grand Children on this,  my 63rd birthday is this: 

  On all of our tombstones there will be two dates.  But the important thing is what we did with the dash between them.

I love you all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1