Happy Birthday Phil!

Yesterday, during a lull in the wetness, we got out for a get-together at the Zoo for Phil’s birthday. Good to walk around and the first outing for my new hiking boots. We’ll all gather together again tomorrow night for another of the famous family dinner parties with cake and laughter and joy in all being together.

Today is actually Phil’s 38th birthday. He was born in the Bay Area in the tumultuous year of 1968 just a few days after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. In June of that year, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. The war in Vietnam raged on. In the fall, Richard Nixon defeated Hubert Humphrey in the presidential election. Eugene McCarthy had come on the scene when he ran against Humphrey for the Democratic nomination which triggered my first active involvement in politics. That was the year I bought my first pair of Birkenstocks at a health food store in the Haight. And the first year I heard the Grateful Dead play.

A few years ago I found an encyclopedia for 1968 at a used book sale in Osceola which made the perfect gift for Phil. What a year 1968 was! Now we are in a new century and another metro area. Phil lives just a few miles away and we are able to spend time being together. What a joy to see what an incredible person he has grown up to be.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR PHIL!