Today is my 77th birthday. This is an historic day for me.
I was birthed 11/25/48. Mom missed Grandma Erb’s Thanksgiving dinner that year, though I only remember being told that.
I have to tell you a quick cute story involving my sister Verla, as she was born 12/17/51. My folks began farming just after all the good prices brought on by WWII dropped, so for the farm’s first decade, we grew up in poverty before the condition was nationally diagnosed in Appalachia in 1961, nearly 25 years after the depression. No, I’m absolutely not complaining, as we being on a family dairy farm, always had plenty to eat & drink, and back then, a $10 bill would bring home at least 3 paper bags full of groceries. It was just that we never had any cash.
Get the picture? Well, at one point in our threesome household, before 12/17/51, my parents were speaking about money being short (I imagine paying hospital bills, etc.,) such that I piped up in my best Warren Buffett Nebraska accent I then could muster (Dad was born a year after Warren in NB also, but the similarities stopped there) and said, “Well, do you think we can afford her?” Question now! Do you really think that was my first financial rodeo I over-heard? I doubt it. I’m not that smart. But I do remember distinctly when Sis came home from the hospital and when the house got wired. It was the same year REA came thru and we had electric lights! Rural Electrification Administration (1935) for you youngsters. Look it up. Had as much positive impact on the nation as the interstate highway system of 1956. Too bad we later allowed such as Vietnam and Covid into the mix!
Yes, indeed, birthdays are reflective times! My sister sent my annual B-card via an email service, since we don’t have the traditional snail-mail in Panama (we do not have addresses here) and I really do not know what they did here before What’sApp and email surfaced! A rather unusual cultural quantum leap/shift for our usual & customary postal/shipping transactions to occur here. But, don’t despair, Amazon recently began delivering packages by calling your What’s App # when they’re in your vicinity requiring you drop them a pin with your delivery location. We’ll see how well that works!
At any rate, I got my annual exquisite birthday card from my sister Verla last week well in advance as an email card and here are the words without the YouTube music and video effects. That’s way beyond my skill set.
A Birthday Prayer
If there’s any Joy you wish for,
God grant it may gladden your way,
If there’s any Blessing you long for,
May that be your Gift for Today:
If there’s any Help you are needing
For Betterment, Comfort or Cheer,
God grant it be sent on your Birthday
To stay with you year after year.
I simply do not ever recall a more appropriate inspiring message than this, but then, today, be aware that I’m totally consumed looking for our second set of truck keys. So, I’m thinking this birthday prayer covers my current ocean front vista & well beyond, rather well!
In summary, did you catch it’s impact?
any Joy you Wish for,
any Blessing you Long for,
any Help you’re Needing,
God Grant it be Sent
To Stay With You Year After Year.
Such remarkable wisdom!
And Now, For the Rest of the Story…
FYI, I began this blog seven years ago today on my 70th birthday, when I was 2 months into recuperating from an auto accident requiring me to stay off both legs (no weight at all!) for nearly 4 months. Today, the legs are fine, and now nearly 650 posts later, it is past time to sever myself from this merlinsmustache.com.
Evidently, as throughout most of my life, I excel at elevating work, hobbies, special interests, etc., into yet another consumptive addictive workaholic activity at the expense of the important stuff, family, relationships, important tasks, accepting criticism & implementing needed changes, etc., and it is imperative, all these distractions STOP NOW!
I pray none of you are so afflicted with such disruptive behaviors as I. If you are, I certainly have NO advice for you, except perhaps what I spelled out for you in my posts over the years, as you heard me say, everything was written first & foremost, to myself, such as the short one this past Sunday afternoon titled “I don’t usually post on Sunday… about how I begin my days. And evidently, I’ve got scads of tweaking yet to do on that yet too.
Even though I have more than a sneaking suspicion of what I’m dealing with, I’m still clueless how to exactly proceed! But I know who does. And even though I’ve lived in my skin all my life, as you have too, and yet at times, we can do a pretty good job of living in denial, can’t we?
And I can just hear some of you saying, “Oh, he’s just going off now to write a book.” I can unequivocally state my life coach would never, never permit that. In fact, I’m sure He’d quit on the spot if I tried that stunt!
One clue, though, in the event I am granted my desired healing, such that I’m once again Retooled & Thriving, as hinted about in the Birthday Prayer above, if/when I’d ever return to any kind of writing, it would be under a different blog name, if it’s even a blog. Might not be needed or even possible by then! Just saying!
God bless all of you on your journey to the Celestial City, and if CC is unfamiliar to you, get a hard copy while you can, of John Bunyan’s famous Pilgrim’s Progress; exquisitely & powerful Wisdom Literature that every disciple of Christ should have in, and have read from, their own library.
Yes, dear readers, this blog shut-down is for real, and no, I will not talk about it. Strange, that I can’t even say, like I do for/about our chaotic world, “it’s all in God’s hands!” Not so much in this case! Unfortunately, this mess has my fingerprints all over it! No one else’s! The ball has been in my court for decades! God has been waiting patiently for me to fully surrender, step out in faith and take Him at His word! Trust me. Addictions of any kind are hard to break. And dare I say, the “good” ones can be the toughest? Never heard of such? Guess we’ll soon find out! You’ll be the first to know, if & when, I’m thru rehab & my coach gives me the green light to share this adventure.
Good Day!