Happy Birthday
Connie and Ted and Haakon and Judit (spelling??) arrived from England yesterday, and brought badly needed rain with them.
Today is Beth's last day of her Christmas holiday job at the pet spa, which I'm very proud of her for taking (since, as our resident leisure consultant, Beth really likes to have a holiday when she has a holiday).
It's also my Dad's 81st birthday. One of his Chinese exchange students said not too long ago, when he found out Dad's age, that Dad was "a living legend." I do not think of him as amazingly old, partly because he is so vigorous both physically and mentally. But of course it is actually getting amazing. He was 4 years old when Hitler came to power in Germany, 16 when Pearl Harbor happened. Now on my mom's side this would not be as big a deal; the Missouri farmers, especially the women, seem to be descended from Rasputin and all live into their 90s or at least 80s. But although I've not checked with the family genealogy specialist, I would guess Dad now is the longest-lived Thames man ever, period. We didn't exactly win the genetic lottery artery-clogging-wise, and so tend to die in our 60s. But Dad hasn't smoked or drunk alcohol, and has always been physically active despite 40 years as a university professor.
I had no consciousness of being "influenced" by anyone or anything when I went to college; I very much thought of myself as my own person. That my ideas were mine because I had thought them through and they made sense to me. But one of the first things that my discipler my freshman year, Zane, said to me was, your dad sure is important to you, isn't he? Well, of course, my mom is, too. But yes, he is.
Happy Birthday, Dad.
Today is Beth's last day of her Christmas holiday job at the pet spa, which I'm very proud of her for taking (since, as our resident leisure consultant, Beth really likes to have a holiday when she has a holiday).
It's also my Dad's 81st birthday. One of his Chinese exchange students said not too long ago, when he found out Dad's age, that Dad was "a living legend." I do not think of him as amazingly old, partly because he is so vigorous both physically and mentally. But of course it is actually getting amazing. He was 4 years old when Hitler came to power in Germany, 16 when Pearl Harbor happened. Now on my mom's side this would not be as big a deal; the Missouri farmers, especially the women, seem to be descended from Rasputin and all live into their 90s or at least 80s. But although I've not checked with the family genealogy specialist, I would guess Dad now is the longest-lived Thames man ever, period. We didn't exactly win the genetic lottery artery-clogging-wise, and so tend to die in our 60s. But Dad hasn't smoked or drunk alcohol, and has always been physically active despite 40 years as a university professor.
I had no consciousness of being "influenced" by anyone or anything when I went to college; I very much thought of myself as my own person. That my ideas were mine because I had thought them through and they made sense to me. But one of the first things that my discipler my freshman year, Zane, said to me was, your dad sure is important to you, isn't he? Well, of course, my mom is, too. But yes, he is.
Happy Birthday, Dad.
posted by Mark at 10:21 AM
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