This poor blog has been on a long dry run, end it today with my birthday. 68th birthday...what a ride. There used to be a tv show in the 50's called This is Your Life and Ralph Edwards would surprise a person, usually a celebrity, by reading from a big book a bio of their life, bringing in people from their past that they hadn't seen for years. Some of the surprised lifers would be less than happy to have their life paraded in front of them, but most seemed to enjoy it. 68 years - who would they bring out and what would they say?

I just had a email that there was a comment from Kathy L on facebook that said "happy birthday" - so that's one person they could bring out...tell about when we worked together at IBM, the escapade when we didn't get a raise, so we would come in a half an hour early and be "greeters". We would stand near the door, drinking a cup of coffee from the cafeteria and just say "Good Morning" to everyone, making overtime for no work. No one ever challenged us..I guess there was nothing in the Manager's Manual about greeters.

Then I got a birthday card from Timmy's sister Meg. Meg could come out and tell us about our fun in Florida...one New Year's Eve her husband Bob was playing in a band and they played a song with the line "with a girl named Lindy Lou" and I got up on a picnic table to dance. Now with these knees I have a hard time sitting at a picnic table.

Then there was my 60th birthday party at the Black Swan, with Shockwave, wearing an UPS uniform came to the door..."package for Linda Murphy, package for Linda Murphy". Maria had borrowed the uniform from a friend whose husband had worked for UPS. Shockwave had a boom box, plugged it in, and started to Shock Wave, dancing, throwing off the uniform, bobbing and weaving in front of me. My nephew John grabbed his three daughters to escape before Shockwave went too far, and Erin screamed all the way out, "But we haven't had cake yet, we need to have cake". Shockwave stopped at his Scooby Doo underwear, but he would be a good one to bring on stage.

Chrissy could tell about our adventures in Ireland, driving the little red rental car on the wrong side of the road. Once the car was too close to a stone wall, and a long scratch appeared, we used red nail polish to disguise it. Or the time in Provincetown when we were the only women in a restaurant. "Look Chrissy," I said pointing to a figure near the bar, "There's another woman."
Chrissy looked and answered, "Loggy, that's a man dressed like a woman."

68 years is a long time. I can remember when jet planes were something special, rattling the windows of the house, and we would run out to see the stream they left in the sky. Or go up to the old schoolyard to watch Sputnik make it's orbit over our house. The inventions - air conditioning, TV, video games, cell phones, span the years, as well as I Like Ike, the Nixons, the tragedies of the Kennedy boys, Bill Clinton's cigar and now Obama. Like I said, it's been a ride and I'm waiting for the next turn in the road.