Random Thoughts on my 58th

As of 11:55 am EST, born in Newport Tennessee, 1953 not long after the fictional Rudy Newton talked about Charles Darwin in Ironweed.
Chuck Warnock has fine piece about Gerald Ford on my birthday at ethicsdaily.com. I have recommended it to a friend who often goes to President Carter's SS Class in Plains, and may send the link to a daughter of Watergate, as well as the author Linda Grant whose novel of our time I hope to read later in the summer. I've had an email exchange with her.
My friend Ron Rash is published in current issue of New Yorker. Hope some of you will see that.
At age 58 it doesn't look like I will get to take the train ride out west I always hoped for, nor see the US Open Tennis Championship Round of 16 in NYC. But Rahul went to Wimbledon and Cousin Neil saw the Australian Open so I just missed both by a friend and a cousin if you want to calculus it that way.
Momma never got to Maine, but she did have some great friends in Baltimore and Euharlee; and some grand children's musical productions at Alice Bell and Providence. And she played the Alabama Jubilee to ecstasy several Saturday afternoons. You could hear her three miles away at Sadie Kiser's house on the Union Hwy if you listened close enough.
Daddy never met Yaz in person, but I did send word through the PR fellow for Vanderbilt Baseball to tell his Grandson my Dad was a fan; and also got word to David Halberstam.
Had a good start out of the blocks at Gaffney High. Last week had some disappointments, but along the way I read Marilynne Robinson, Cormac McCarthy, Fleming Rutledge and some others to make sense of it; and Alice McDermott and Charming Billy.
Asked Billy Bob a question in person couple years ago, and found the poet mary Oliver; couple whose poems are on this blog.
Dee Edwards, the Methodist Preacher was great friend in 92 and there have been many others.
Feb 24, 2006 was a disaster and I may write about it yet.
So to Tommy Jones, and Reggie Jackson and Pope John Paul the Beatified, and Jane Esselmeyer of Gaffney, even a lyberry trustee who voted wrong: Happy Birthday.