Fogbow

And while I appreciate all the excitement and anticipation and threads and people wishing me a happy birthday yesterday, the plain fact is that I was born on December 13th, and not December 12th.

So I had to start my own birthday thread, because nobody could wait until the actual day, and that's okay, but somebody oughta get the date right, and I suppose it should be me. So I deleted one birthday thread and locked the other one, and this will have to do for an official one.

Whew.

The thing about it is, it's just so preposterous to think that I would reach the age of 70.

After all the crazy stuff I did as a yoot, it just seems weird to me that I would still be alive at 70 years old.

I certainly never thought I'd reach 70. I had very reasonable expectations of being dead before I was 40.

Y'all know, I left home the day after I graduated high school in June 1971, and drove my VW bus clean across this great land of ours, to the Haight-Ashbury to be a hippy forever, and I led a crazy street life for many years, and I honestly thought, if I can just make it to 40, that will be a good long life for me.

I made it to 40.

I came THISCLOSE to dying on more than half a dozen occasions, but I did make it to age 40, and I even managed to get a good education and some nice jobs along the road, considering where I'd been.



And at 41 I married ol' Wifehorn, instead of being dead. This is all bonus time now. She still had to clean me up some, mind you. I was almost could pretend to be civilized semi-civilized by then.

But she's kept me alive and kicking all this time.

How terribly strange to be 70. Happy Birthday Foggy!

Happy Birthday you crusty old bird! May you still have many more to come
ETA... I forgot your birfhday cake!

Now if only any of the birthers like Jerome corsi were on cameo we could have chipped in and got a special birthday video

On this day in 2003, Saddam was found in his dirty little hidey-hole not far from Tikrit.

And many more!!!!!

Today is Taylor Swift's birthday.

She's 33 years old.

In 37 years she'll be 70, and you'll be 107!

Foggy wrote: ↑Tue Dec 13, 2022 6:09 am
Y'all know, I left home the day after I graduated high school in June 1971, and drove my VW bus clean across this great land of ours, to the Haight-Ashbury to be a hippy forever, and I led a crazy street life for many years, and I honestly thought, if I can just make it to 40, that will be a good long life for me.

You must have waited to start first grade until the year after you turned 6. December babies were sort of in weird situation back then because depending on where you lived you either started at age 5 and turned 6 the following December or waited the until the fall after you turned 6. Mrs. RC was born a year and a handful of days after you but also graduated in 1971 when she was still 17 because she entered first grade at age 5. It may have been parents' choice to start kids at age 5. I do not recall. My younger brother was born on October 23rd and also started first grade at 5.

Enough trivia from the 50's.. Happy Birthday Foggy.

Happy 70th Rooster!!

Reality Check wrote: ↑Tue Dec 13, 2022 8:32 am You must have waited to start first grade until the year after you turned 6. December babies were sort of in weird situation back then because depending on where you lived you either started at age 5 and turned 6 the following December or waited the until the fall after you turned 6. Mrs. RC was born a year and a handful of days after you but also graduated in 1971 when she was still 17 because she entered first grade at age 5. It may have been parents' choice to start kids at age 5. I do not recall. My younger brother was born on October 23rd and also started first grade at 5.

You keep saying first grade. They didn't have K back in those ancient times?

I think it was parent(s) choice. I'm an August baby here and my pops wanted me in school at newly 5, so, too, I gradgeeated while still 17.
My adolescent BFF is two weeks my elder and his parents waited until he turned 6.
I always felt that would have been the better plan for me.

Reality Check wrote: ↑Tue Dec 13, 2022 8:32 am You must have waited to start first grade until the year after you turned 6.

It was WAY more weird than that.

I started 1st grade in military school in South Carolina at 5, read all the books they had in 6 weeks (my mom taught me to read early) and they put me in 2nd grade. But remember, we moved all the time, like a Navy fambly.

I started 4th grade in La Jolla, California, and I was only 7. All the other kids were 9. They yanked me out of 4th and made me do 3rd grade a second time, not because of academics but to get me closer to my age group*.

After 8th grade in Bethesda, Maryland, my parents sent me to boarding school in Delaware for a year. I had to repeat 8th grade at the boarding school, because their academics were tougher than Maryland public schools.

I was not kicked out of boarding school - I was asked not to return.

So I repeated 3rd and 8th grades before I finally got back in with my correct age group for high school.

And I was only busted and suspended from high school once.

* My parents claimed that even at 7, I kept asking, "Why does the teacher repeat things all the time? I understand the first time!"

Happy birthday!!

70! 70! 70! HAPPY REAL 70TH!

There is a historical documentary about our dear leader..
I, too, wonder how he made it this far.

This documentary should be nominated for a special Emmy!

Foggy wrote: ↑Tue Dec 13, 2022 8:50 am
It was WAY more weird than that.

Why am I not surprised you had such an interesting school career?

It's funny but decisions like that can change your entire life. I think that educators decided later that pushing kids into school early like that was not a good idea. I believe now it is more common to have kids wait until they are 5 to start kindergarten.

(Parents still get to choose when their kids start kindergarten here. My granddaughter, more than ready, started kindergarten right after her fifth birthday; my grandson, not ready, didn't start until he was almost six.)

Have a happy one!

Happy Birthday, you septuagenarian!!

I'll be joining you in less than two months. And, yes I'm surprised that I lived past 40 too, also.

I'll add my happy birthday and a large thank you for giving a bunch of us the chance to hang out with you mostly daily.