They say it’s your birthday
Well, it’s my birthday too, yeah
They say it’s your birthday
We’re gonna have a good time
I’m glad it’s your birthday
In November 1968 this Beatles song (Birthday) made its debut when “the White Album” was released. Three short months later, I made my world debut. Legend has it Lennon and McCartney made this song up “on the fly” at the studio during the recording of the album. In a 1980 interview John Lennon characterized the song as being “a piece of garbage.” Perhaps not the best work from the Beatles, but still a catchy song to hear now and then.
I recently celebrated another birthday as those things seem to come around every year like clock-work. While this was not one of those milestone birthdays, it was memorable nonetheless. This one started out in the air. After multiple mechanical issues, my flight from Chicago to Austin was somewhere over north Texas when the clock struck midnight and my birthday day officially started. My first birthday greeting happened around 1:45a when I walked into the house and my loyal Shih Tzu greeted me with a “hug” after waiting patiently for hours for my arrival back home.
The first gift of the day was being able to sleep in until 7a – thanks to my loving wife getting one kid off the early morning cheer practice and calming down the other child as she fretted about missing an early morning flight due to an extremely slow moving security line at the Memphis airport. While I had decided to take the day off from work, I knew this birthday would not be devoid of work.
The second gift of the day was seeing that daughter who was able to catch her early morning flight in Memphis, coming down the escalator at the Austin airport. While we are blessed to be able to travel back and forth to the Velvet Ditch of Mississippi (aka Oxford) on a fairly frequent basis, it is always a lift to the spirits to spend time with child that you don’t to get see on a daily, weekly or sometimes monthly basis. After a quick bite to eat at Whataburger to satisfy a college girls Texas cravings (note the closest WB to Oxford is a 3 hour drive), the work part of the day was about to start.
As referenced earlier the younger daughter is on her school’s cheer squad. For the past 7 years that cheer squad has held an annual event called Savio Cuts for Cancer. “Savio” is the short name for St Dominic Savio Catholic High School – a small 400 person school on the north side of Austin. “Cuts” is in reference to students and others in the community donating 8+ inches of hair to an organization that makes wigs for those fighting cancer. And “Cancer”, well sadly I don’t think that needs a description or definition. Tradition is for the juniors on the cheer squad to essentially chair the event – plan the event, find sponsors, arrange for hair stylists to cut hair, promote the event, etc. This year that meant my daughter and one other cheerleader were given the honor of chairing the event. Planning an event takes a ton of time and effort and these two young ladies were definitely up to the challenge. Part of that planning included cheer parents helping set up for the event and being there to guide people to the right places during the event – an event that this year happened to coincide with my birthday.
That is where my third gift surfaced. One does not usually associate work with a being a gift, but when you are supporting a good cause it certainly does. Setting up tables, moving chairs around, hauling boxes from cars, building a balloon arch…all gifts. And then there was the event itself.
- What a gift to see a charity event coordinated by teenagers go off without a hitch.
- What a gift to listen to a high school freshman give her personal testimony on her battle with cancer and the importance of her faith and her faith community in her journey over the past year.
- What a gift to see girl after girl (including my own daughter) give a small part (8+ inches of hair) of themselves to help others.
- What a gift to see hundreds of kids come down from the gym stands and write down the names of loved ones that have faced cancer.
- What a gift to see an entire community coming together to stand against a dreaded disease and to remind each other that we are never alone.
The event was a huge success with close to 150 ponytails collected and over $2,300 raised for St Jude Children’s Hospital. But the numbers pale in comparison to the success of bringing together a community.
My day concluded with dinner and margaritas at an “old Austin” institution – El Patio; opening some physical gifts from the family; and then my traditional yellow cake with chocolate icing. All in all a great day, and a birthday like no other. And yes, I had a good time.
Robert Not Bob 