No I'm not hawking for birthday gifts or anything. In fact, I'd pretty much appreciate it if you didn't bring it up at all. You see, I've already had 55 birthdays and any additional ones from this point forward I consider complementus-gratis.
I don't much recall my first few birthdays, probably because my hillbilly family were usually too drunk on moonshine to remember to tell me when they came. Where I came from, a little place called Delbarton West Virginia, children weren't usually given names for the first couple years so you wouldn't get too attached to them in case they didn't make it. Hence, I was named "Boy Workman" until my third birthday and in celebration of my beating the odds the family took me into Huntington WV and had a birth certificate issued. Unfortunately, by then my Mother had married a man named "Booth" and they slipped his last name on my birth certificate. Imagine yourself living with the name John Booth. It'll come to you.
In case you were wondering what we hillbilly babies looked like in those days, this should give you some idea...
Could you say "Happy Birthday" to
this face without saying "WTF have I done?"
The first real birthday I remember was at 13 years old. The Beatles were on Ed Sullivan and I watched it from juvenile detention up in Ohio and it changed my life. I knew then what I wanted to do for the rest of my life:
1: Play music all my life
2: Be very rich and famous, and
3: Have young girls swoon and faint when I sang
One out of three ain't bad, but in my defense I have had a few women pass out from drunkenness during my performances.
Then came the drugs of the 60's. I was certain I would not turn 18, but I defied the odds and made it. Reaching 21 was pretty unlikely, but again I persevered. 25 was a big one. I woke up in jail for drunk and disorderly after busting a gay guy in the head with a beer bottle for grabbing my ass. (Come to think of it I don't think anyone has grabbed my ass since ...)
30 was an impossibility but then I met my wife and all that changed. she straightened me out and I started to think I "might" make 40. Then 40 came and went and I found myself wearing a tie to work and raising two kids. Before I knew what hit me I turned fifty years old. All I could think was "No freakin way!".
50 years makes one stop and take stock in life. A half-centurion, a survivor, a miracle of modern medicine. I have been patched back together so many times I have enough scars to make Frankenstein's monster jealous. I had survived many run-ins with the law, been thrown off Harley Davidsons, shot at and cut a couple times, survived the disco era and made it through raising a teenage daughter (which may have been the hardest part).
Well, I hit 55, which I like to call "the speed limit" because I started slowing down.
To sum up I am turning 56 in a day or two (can't remember anymore) and I see no reason to ignore nor celebrate it. It's a small landmark in a long journey and it'll be 4 more years before I hit a big one, so providing I'm still around and have survived global warming, the wars over in the Middle East and the endless reruns of Seinfeld I'll report back in and let you know how I'm doing. In the meantime if anyone wants to give me a birthday gift I could use some arch supports, a new heating pad and maybe some Viagra.
Live every day folks, they go by so fast.
JB - 2010
1: Play music all my life
2: Be very rich and famous, and
3: Have young girls swoon and faint when I sang
One out of three ain't bad, but in my defense I have had a few women pass out from drunkenness during my performances.
Then came the drugs of the 60's. I was certain I would not turn 18, but I defied the odds and made it. Reaching 21 was pretty unlikely, but again I persevered. 25 was a big one. I woke up in jail for drunk and disorderly after busting a gay guy in the head with a beer bottle for grabbing my ass. (Come to think of it I don't think anyone has grabbed my ass since ...)
30 was an impossibility but then I met my wife and all that changed. she straightened me out and I started to think I "might" make 40. Then 40 came and went and I found myself wearing a tie to work and raising two kids. Before I knew what hit me I turned fifty years old. All I could think was "No freakin way!".
50 years makes one stop and take stock in life. A half-centurion, a survivor, a miracle of modern medicine. I have been patched back together so many times I have enough scars to make Frankenstein's monster jealous. I had survived many run-ins with the law, been thrown off Harley Davidsons, shot at and cut a couple times, survived the disco era and made it through raising a teenage daughter (which may have been the hardest part).
Well, I hit 55, which I like to call "the speed limit" because I started slowing down.
To sum up I am turning 56 in a day or two (can't remember anymore) and I see no reason to ignore nor celebrate it. It's a small landmark in a long journey and it'll be 4 more years before I hit a big one, so providing I'm still around and have survived global warming, the wars over in the Middle East and the endless reruns of Seinfeld I'll report back in and let you know how I'm doing. In the meantime if anyone wants to give me a birthday gift I could use some arch supports, a new heating pad and maybe some Viagra.
Live every day folks, they go by so fast.
JB - 2010
