It's my Birthday

Today is my birthday. It is the 58th time I will celebrate the beginning of this journey we call life.  Not that old, but getting there.
As anyone that has read previous postings of mine knows, I'm into genealogy. I am grateful I'm not the Grandparents or Great Grand Parents as there life expectancy was much shorter than mine. For the Great Grandparents, fifty eight would have been considered quite old. They did age faster back then. I believe it was a combination of hard work and poor medical care. They literally worked themselves to death.
To me it is just another day. A day of note however. One can look at it as one more year gone by, or the beginning of another. I choose the later. I get to start another year. Another chance to get it right ! A world of opportunity open before me. I can draw upon past experience to perhaps make better choices. We are conditioned to think about Jan 1 being the beginning of the year but it is not so. That is only a convenient way to measure time for all to understand. My year begins on July the twentieth. I live summer to summer.
If you believe in astrology my sign is Cancer the Crab. Not too crazy about the cancer part but I do like crabs ! Then, I do steam and eat them ,so not sure what that is saying. My element is water. That is a mixed thing though. I am not a good swimmer at all and prefer staying on the surface. Probably why I joined the Navy. People have said it to me more times than I can remember. " You were in the Navy and can't swim ?" My response was always the same," hence the boat. "
I share a birthday with some famous people too. Carlos Santana for one. He was born in 1947 and took all the guitar talent then,that's why I can't play so well. Thanks Carlos ! Natalie Wood was born on the twentieth. Sir Edmund Hillary was born on the twentieth and scaled Mt. Everest. I don't like the cold.
In 1963 there was a solar eclipse. I watched it through a peep hole in a shoe box.
I had a childhood friend that shared  this birthday with me. He lived right down the road from me,next door to my Aunt. I would play with him occasionally but we had little in common. He was quite bookish and not very athletic. I was not quite as academically inclined and loved playing baseball. We did share some good times together. I have lost track of him over the years but think of him every year. Happy Birthday, Barry.
And so another year in my life has gone by. It has been a good one and I have no complaints. I'm happy and healthy. Not much more you can ask for. When I was sixteen my sister gave me a real birthday party. Only one I ever had. Mom always made me a cake and we had ice cream. The family sang and I blew out the candles. That was it.
Oh, I almost forgot. On July 20,1969 man set foot on the moon for the first time. I had a commemorative coin that was ordered off the back of a box of cereal but it was lost somewhere. Wish I still had that.

me at 58 or is it 25 ?

Somewhere I have a picture with Barry and I at our joint birthday party. I was five and don't remember attending. Spent some time looking for it but can't seem to locate it at the moment. It would be the only picture I can say for sure that was taken on my birthday. Think I'll get the wife to take one today.