Birthdays

On this date in 1915, my father, Billy Crider, was born. Twenty-six years later, I came along. I grew up thinking I was the best birthday present anybody could ever have had. Looking back on it, I see that I might possibly have been mistaken. But maybe not.

I wasn't the first child to be born to my mother, Frances. I had an unnamed older brother who lived for only a few hours. I knew him only as a small stone in a cemetery. The stone's still there, and now there's a stone for me, too. Only one date's on it, so far, and I hope the other one doesn't have to be added for while. A long while.

As an imaginative kid, I used to wonder how it would have been to have an older brother. What would he have been like? What might he have become? How would we have gotten along? I still think about it now and then.

And speaking of birthdays, it's also the blog's birthday, seven years old today and headed for its 10,000th post sometime later this year. Probably next month.