59 Birthdays

Today I'm turning 59. A look back to my life on each birthday, year by year:

April 2, 1953: Born. Cute. Only breast-fed baby on the floor in the hospital. Thanks, Mom.
April 2, 1954: Apple of my parents' eye. Time to move from an apartment to my first house.
April 2, 1955: My brother is a day old. Mom wasn't at my birthday party.
April 2, 1956: My dad has a new sports car.
April 2, 1957: We took it racing. Dad and his friends have fun on the driveway.
April 2, 1958: Dad took movies of my birthday party. I had to share it with my brother.
April 2, 1959: My last birthday in my first house. Shared my party again.
April 2, 1960: Just moved to New Mexico. We have a Corvair. And a horse.
April 2, 1961: I'm skipping from 2nd to 3rd grade in the middle of the year.
April 2, 1962: We're moving again.
April 2, 1963: Our year in Staten Island is almost over. Because we're moving, I can't be a crossing guard at the school next year. I have a baseball card collection.
April 2, 1964: The Beatles have arrived! I got Meet the Beatles for an 11th birthday present.
April 2, 1965: Glued to the radio. Reading Spider-Man comics.
April 2, 1966: Now in California. My bar mitzvah is next month and I'm learning my torah portion using a tiny tape recorder. Just became a Boy Scout.
April 2, 1967: Dad has moved out last October. Mom bought a stereo. I love Ramona (secretly and painfully).
April 2, 1968: Got Bee Gees' Horizontal album as a birthday present. I got my first guitar this year and am taking lessons. I want long hair and little metal glasses like John Lennon.
April 2, 1969: Playing guitar in my free time. Dave W. and I played down the street for a party. Loving Manon now (she still doesn't know).
April 2, 1970: I'm almost out of high school, but I'm in Arizona with my dad. Terribly stressful time, but I play music in a practice band. I graduate in less than two months.
April 2, 1971: Living in a garage apartment in San Francisco. Taking guitar lessons. My hair is long and free. Just finished working in a restaurant.
April 2, 1972: Just started college. I'm in the music department--but I won't stay there long. Elton John's Tiny Dancer is a big hit.
April 2, 1973: Living with the two Larson brothers in a flat in San Francisco a few blocks from the Haight-Ashbury. A dream--but not like I planned. No steady girlfriend, but my beard is growing in nicely.
April 2, 1974: Just arrived in Israel last month; living on a kibbutz. Ani lomed Ivrit (I am learning Hebrew).
April 2, 1975: Back in Concord with my friend Scott. Attending Diablo Valley College. Driving my first car--a red VW Beetle. Still no girlfriend.
April 2, 1976: Back at college in San Francisco, I met my first real girlfriend last September, at my part-time job and we move in together.
April 2, 1977: Life is good. I publish a book review in the San Francisco Review of Books. My VW Beetle dies--found a nine-year-old VW Squareback.
April 2, 1978:  Almost time to graduate. My English degree will be Summa Cum Laude. We moved to Eureka Valley (S.F.) from the western edge of town.
April 2, 1979: I'm working at an antiquarian bookshop in downtown San Francisco. I wear a suit and tie. I like the steady money.
April 2, 1980: I'm married! We got hitched on a Thursday at San Francisco City Hall last fall. It feels good. We have a new Toyota. I'm playing bluegrass music on Sundays (mandolin).
April 2, 1981: It's the eighties. Things feel different. My wife is pregnant!
April 2, 1982: I'm working for Jeffrey Thomas, a fine man who is starting up his own rare book company. My son was born last December.
April 2, 1983: Life is good and busy. My son is growing, work is going well.
April 2, 1984: We move to Clay Street--a nicer apartment. I consider graphic design as a profession and take a couple classes.
April 2, 1985: Marital troubles. We moved from dream apartment when the building sold and are stuck out in the foggy Sunset District of S.F.
April 2, 1986: Living on my own in Albany, CA. New job selling phone systems in San Francisco. Dating again.
April 2, 1987: Working at the Golden State Warriors. A two-week assignment let to a full-time hire. Driving a new Honda Civic Si since last summer.
April 2, 1988: Met the beauty who would become my second wife in November and life is wonderful.
Taking on the Season Ticket Ombudsman job at the Warriors.
April 2, 1989: I'm engaged to be married on July 22. We're making our own wedding invitations. We moved to a brand new apartment in Emeryville, CA.
April 2, 1990: Married and house hunting. I take on new work role as editor of Warriors Playbook magazine.
April 2, 1991: Moved to a townhouse in San Leandro, CA. Small, but ours. Almost immediately the property values drop because of a market shift. I own a new Saturn.
April 2, 1992: Stillborn baby last October shocks us. We decide to try again and are expecting in September. I start a brand new weekly auto column in February in the local paper. I help found the Western Automotive Journalists.
April 2, 1993: My second son is born in August 1992. He's healthy and beautiful and some of the pain of loss is relieved. For my 40th birthday I start growing my hair long (and for the first and only time, have it straightened).
April 2, 1994: My son is growing, my column is thriving, but things are getting tense at work.
April 2, 1995: The Warriors job implodes in August of '94. I start a new job with the San Francisco Spiders hockey team.
April 2, 1996: The Spiders go out of business after just a year. It was a nice run, but I'm looking for work.
April 2, 1997: I'm selling newspaper advertising for the paper that carries my column. Hard work for  modest pay. My son's in Montessori school.
April 2, 1998: I was wooed away to a big newspaper to sell ads, but it's terrible and I return to the small paper again. My column continues.
April 2, 1999: Still in the ad business. Starting to look around for other opportunities.
April 2, 2000: After a short stint at Chek-Chart, an automotive information company, I left when the company was sold. My son's in college! Just started a contract position at Oracle University. Sad: lost Lucien, my mother's longtime partner, also Fiona, another stillborn baby.
April 2, 2001: At my Oracle contract job I looked around and got a fulltime tech writing position at Oracle starting last December. My salary has doubled. My wife didn't believe it. We got Max, our Boston Terrier, last June.
April 2, 2002: We just moved into our new house in Castro Valley--triple the space.
April 2, 2003:  I lost my dad suddenly last June, right after his 75th birthday. I turned 50 today, and got the greatest birthday present ever--my Fender electric bass.
April 2, 2004: After a year of electric bass lessons, looking into the upright bass now. House, car, job, column all chugging along.
April 2, 2005: Taking upright bass lessons. I'm loving it.
April 2, 2006: Bought my own upright bass. I got a Nash Metropolitan to play with, too, but it has serious electrical issues.
April 2, 2007: My son got married last July--I have a lovely daughter-in-law! Started a band with three other music students, called Tin Whiskers. Just joined the Castro Valley Chamber Orchestra and played my first concert a few weeks ago. Got our second Boston, Coco, late last year.
April 2, 2008: Tin Whiskers is now Red Paint. We played a 4th of July gig and are rehearsing weekly. Just started a new job at Gilead Sciences in internal communications.
April 2, 2009: I have a beautiful granddaughter! My 20th wedding anniversary arrives in July.
April 2, 2010: I'm going to chamber music weekend workshops. It's another way to enjoy bass playing. I work at Responsys now, an email marketing software company, as a tech writer.
April 2, 2011: Red Paint recorded their first CD. Younger son has completed high school, older one is a CPA. I got a fine tattoo to celebrate my love for guitar and upright bass.
April 2, 2012: It's a fine day. My Jewish Roots Project is three months old. I posted every day in this blog in 2011. My car column turned 20 years old in February. I've spent eleven months at Luidia, where I started shortly after my last birthday. My younger son is an Abercrombie & Fitch model. Band and orchestra going strong, extra musical projects are fun. My beautiful wife looks much younger than her age.

Actually, counting the actual day of my birth, it's 60 birthdays, isn't it?

Birthdays

Yesterday, my fellow employees gathered around a couple of tables filled with cakes, pies and fruit and sang "Happy Birthday" to several colleagues who happened to share November birthdays. They blew out the candles together and the feasting began. Then, we went back to work. We do this every month.

How many million times a day does this ritual play out in homes and offices around the country--or the world? Celebrating birthdays is everywhere--or at least it's all over the U.S., where I live.

Also at work this week, we celebrated a birth, when an employee delivered her first child on 11/11/11--at just a few minutes before 11:11! Two photos of the beautiful boy circulated through our emailboxes.

Today is the birthday of Gordon Lightfoot, one of my favorite singer/songwriter/musicians. I spent an evening with him last week. Here's a case of celebrating the achievement of years. The man is still with us at 73, and although he doesn't sound the same, he is our treasured artist and we celebrate him every time "If You Could Read My Mind" comes on the iPod. There wasn't an empty seat at his concert last week.

The Beatles sang "You say it's your birthday..." on the White Album, and that song gets played a lot, although it is not as ubiquitous as the aforementioned little tune. There are lots of other birthday songs out there.

My wife, stepmom and older son all have birthdays in the next few weeks. That makes the Thanksgiving time especially meaningful. Also, a friend and former boss's birthday is November 27. Jeffrey Thomas, born just 10 days after Gordon Lightfoot in 1938, passed away at only 68. I used to call him on his birthday every year. I miss that--and him.

My most important birthday, I think, so far, was my 50th. That's when I began to take music seriously and got my first bass. I'm hoping -- even planning -- to have many many more.

Double Graduation and Memorable Dates

May 27th marks the day I graduated from high school--and college too. Yes, the diploma-receiving walks were eight years apart. But I was a busy guy--spending a year on a kibbutz in Israel and earning my way through school.

Despite the fact that high school was more than "two score" ago and the day I snagged my English degree is also ancient history, I commemorate my double graduation day every year--by myself. No parties, no special activities. I just remember with some gratitude.

Graduations are interesting in that the date itself really isn't what's significant. It's that it normally indicates the end of something and the beginning of another. After high school, I embarked on a little adventure in guitar strumming and working that lasted a year and eight months. By the time I went to college, I was ready. After college, I stepped immediately into a fulltime job that lasted three and a half years.

Some dates are obvious--birthdays--yours and your significant other--and your kids' (especially young ones, who have great expectations). Some are more significant to the world--sometimes horrible too. What about D-Day (good), September 11--(bad), November 22 (JFK shot--bad). For me, December 8 is a bad day--when John Lennon was murdered. That one hurts me every year. How about May 1, 2011--the day Osama Bin Laden was found and dispatched? I'm guessing that most people consider that a "good" day. It probably won't become a Hallmark holiday, however.

Or course, January 1 is always important as a new beginning, and December 25 is significant to Christians--and most of the rest of us too--as a time to do something a little different beyond it's religious significance.

The first day of the each new season is recognized. When June 21 arrives, we expect summer warmth and long days--but maybe we're remembering school being out and the "freedom" that came with it.

For me, November 25 and 26 together are very significant because the first date is the day I met my wife and the 26th is--her birthday.

I'm glad I graduated (twice)--my college degree especially has been useful to me, as has the effort I had to put in to earn it.

You Say It's My Birthday!

Yes, it is my birthday today. I received many gracious wishes from my friends, colleagues, former colleagues, relatives... the list goes on. I also was congratulated by the place I bought my last pair of shoes, a local FM station and a Mazda forum I visited last year. The electronic age of Facebook and email greetings does make one feel important--although I think those last three weren't very sincere.

I spent the bulk of the day in Palo Alto (California). I had heard about a French Fair there, and I was lured at the prospect of the possibly seeing some French cars and the zero admission price. Well, it turns out there were no cars there, but some beautiful artwork, jewelry, clothing, fascinating people, and a special deal. We purchased a $20 food coupon for just $10 for a meal at Bistro Maxine, in downtown Palo Alto.

We had to wait a while for a seat at the tiny little place (we actually ended up at one of three outside tables--perfect). We enjoyed delicious French fare, a couple of tiny bottles of sparkling wine, and a very leisurely time (see photo). Then, we visited shops along University Avenue, and got into a time warp of amusement at a very fully stocked Borders bookstore that used to be a theater. All the glorious old moldings were intact in what appears to be a survivor of the chain.

My wife suggested a particular excellent bakery for my cake--Dianda's Italian American Bakery. We thought it would be easy to find in "downtown San Mateo" but it turned out to be way out on the edge of town. The navigation system in my Dodge Charger was beautifully displayed but unhelpful in this case, so with a couple of phone calls we barely made it at the last second to pick up the luscious cake that I'll be sampling shortly.

We went out for a Mexican dinner at our local spot--Don Jose's--and it was fine as well. So--French lunch, Mexican dinner, Italian cake. An international birthday. And, as my grandmother would say after a day of overeating--"Tomorrow--one cornflake!"