The Big Twenty One, or; I'm really getting old!

Thanksgiving Day had a bigger meaning for us this year, for only the third time in our lives.
It was also our only son's birthday.
This was a real rite of passage for him, and for us.
His Twenty First!

On the day he was born it was a cold, wet Saturday in Dallas, Texas.
His proud new Papa immediately went out and bought the biggest Teddy Bear he could find.
I already had the proper Sports pedigree, a miniature Dolphins football, and I'm sure something in Hurricane Orange, Green and White wound up in his crib.
Both teams were then Champions, this year they are both Chumps.

But the Birthday Boy is a Champ, that is indisputable!

We actually got to see him on Thanksgiving Day/his Birthday itself.
The rest of the time he was either sleeping, or over at his friends engaging in their favorite leisure activity of video games.
Or his friends were sequestered with him here (in my Den!) gaming away.

They occasionally came downstairs for Cake or something to drink.
No runnning the streets getting into trouble like most of their generation.

In fact, a couple of their chums who have discovered a girl that will put up with them are objects of scorn for forsaking the team.
Oh, their day will come soon enough!

But, that is as it should be.
When you are young and unattached, play.
There will be little time for that after your schooling is over, and when kidlings of your own come along.

I remember my Aunt Bee telling me about the day I was born.
My Dad, upon returning from the hospital (in those days the Dick Van Dyke routine was the rule. Dad waited in the lobby smoking while the mother gave birth)
He was so excited that she tells me he jumped the yard fence flat-footed!
This was a man with bad knees and injuries from his Army service.
That mattered not.
He had a son!
It would have been just as wonderful had one of my sisters been born first.

But there is something about having a male heir to carry on a family name that has been here in America since the mid seventeenth century.

I gave Dad grief, my son gave me grief, and (I hope I am here to see it!) his kids will give him grief.
That's why the Lord invented Gray hair. (and Jack Daniels!)

His mother and I are incredibly proud of the fine young man he has grown up to be.
An honors student, soldier, and leader that people will be glad to follow.
His future is bright, and we are in good hands with men and women like him to pick up the baton and run the race for us.

I'll post some pictures later on this week of his birthday.

Happy Birthday, our son!