That is the exact time of my actual birth. So, while I ponder the last few hours in the hypothetical womb, what are my thoughts on turning the age of 60.
Whew! I didn't think I'd make it. I should locate a baby picture but I really can't seem to find any. Much of the first year of life my dad was stationed in Yokohama, Japan. But apparently , according to my distraught mother, my first words were "dada"' which she may have mistaken for "father" but I knew I was referring to Marcel Duchamp, an early favorite of mine. The first time I met my father I wailed in horror at the stranger he was. Fast forward ten years to a trip to the 1964 World's Fair in New York with Dorothy. When I returned to Detroit I cried upon seeing dad and embraced him, much to the chagrin of my mother, who must have felt slighted. But I must say that was the most excellent trip with my grandma Dorothy. We stayed in the city with her friends, one of whom was Judy Collins' dentist and the other was a soprano in the Met chorus. We ate at all the must go to spots, saw Oliver on Broadway and the World's Fair. The best part was the train trip to and from New York. My first taste of curry. Yowzer
No one,it seemed, took photos of my first year until dad returned home with a camera, which I still have somewhere in my mess I call a closet, along with my parents' wedding album and Dorothy's good silver flatware. Sentimental stuff but not of much actual value. After dad got home some photo sessions commenced. The big deal was around the time I was four or five dad got a 8mm movie camera. I have those films. A birthday with grandma Dora, a car trip to Florida in August when I was seven, including the visit to the Parrot Jungle and Cypress Gardens. It was the summer I learned to swim.
But no one took too many pictures when I was growing up. I don't have any school pictures, other than my high school graduation photo, which is God knows where. So my memories are mostly in my head and subject to the special lens of nostalgia.
So, here I am, at 60, somewhat the worse for wear, but still kicking. And like my 16th birthday, another one of those milestone ages, it is thundering and lightening. I recall this as the storm in Detroit was severe enough to make me seek shelter in Dorothy's bedroom, in one of the double beds. My sanctuary was her bedroom. Right now it is lightening like all get out and the only reason Yankel isn't yowling is he can't hear the thunder over the central air.
Dorothy's bedroom...my haven where I would sneak in on those nights I couldn't sleep and stay up all night listening to her radio on WJR and Night Flight (was that early Mike Whorf?). I think that is where the insomnia developed, a lifelong affliction.
Okay, the cats are cowering and Kim will soon be here. Happy birthday to you, Sir Paul McCartney, and happy anniversary of the start of the War of 1812. That may be why it storms so much on the 18th of June. The sound of cannons of war, as opposed to the canons of peace.
I am off.
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