Birthdays

I forgot to recognize Martin Luther King day. But it’s not too late. Here’s the final part of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s last speech, I See the Promised Land, the day before he was assassinated. Mighty powerful. Mighty powerful.

We all celebrated two birthdays over the Labor Day weekend, first Nick became 17, then Nat became 40. Big gap in age there but after all, one (Nick) is the nephew of the other (Nat). Saturday night, the first of September, on Nat’s exact 40th birthday we all celebrated at the Black Horse Tavern in the town of Bridgton, Maine, and had a rollicking good time. In fact here’s a photo of the other birthday boy, Nick, swinging back and forth between two ladies, one his grandma (Cynthia), and the other his aunt (Kate).

Nick does a great Borat imitation and Nat’s a superlative design engineer. Ever here of the Talon? Oh, Nat is as often called Nash as he is Nat. The three Ns…..

Today is the day the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and my early childhood friend, David Burnham, would have been 78. He died in 1996. Here is what I wrote in my Records 1945 book on August 8, 1945:

Picked Gravs after mashing range; Russia declares war on Japan; Atomic bomb wiped out over 100,000 people in Hohorshuai; Went down to see Waugh tonight; Apples netted 25.97; 12.98 coming to me;

Amazingly casual, and I can’t even spell Hiroshima. Well, I was 16 years old; old enough to know better though? Casual I may have been in this entry, but I remember having nightmares about atomic bombs around that time.

I picked up this YouTube on Juan Cole this morning. Not exactly our most shining moment, as he says:

We took the little lady out to a local tavern last evening and fed and feted her. Here’s the picture I took at our table before the meal was served. Kate (daughter), Cynthia (the birthday girl) and Don (Kate’s S.O.):

We took her home afterwards and let her open her presents. Here she is showing the card and gift she got from Kate:

Wow, it’s a bathtub headrest, she says. Just what I’ve always wanted!