APRIL DAYS

April is a celebratory month in our family. On the first, April Fool's Day, the BRD and her Beau Jack go down to the county courthouse to take out a marriage license. It's not that they intend to marry. It's just become a silly tradition with them. Six years and counting. Then they take a chauffered limousine to a luncheon spot and meet a bunch of friends. This year we joined them. I took pictures but for some reason this is the only one I saved.

The BRD said she liked this one because she looked thin. As usual, I just think she looks beautiful.

It's crazy but I did save a couple of other pictures, shot through the window of the club where we had lunch.

Amazing what a little (a lot) of money can do in a desert climate, isn't it. This is the Club at Prescott Lakes. I guess those two bodies of water are the lakes. Beau Jack told me when visitors from the Midwest come to play golf they say "Those aren't lakes. They're just ponds!"

But, getting back to the subject of this blog. In another few days, the BRD will celebrate her birthday. Then one of my sons has his birthday. A couple of weeks after that I will have an epochal birthday (more on that later). And today is the 44th anniversary of the day SWMBO and I got married. (Happy anniversary, dear.)

So, all in all, it's a good month for the greeting card industry.

WE'RE ALL GETTING OLD . . .

The sands in the hourglass keep drifting slowly downward. Actually it seems like the older I get the faster that darned stuff runs through. Today marks the 70th birthdays of a former news director of mine, Jim Willi,* and one of the greatest guitar players of all time, Eric Clapton.

Here's a victorious picture of Jim on a lake near Dallas, Texas where he now lives.

Jim had black hair when I worked for him.

That other guy celebrating 70 today has had a remarkable career. Here is a list of some of the bands he played with.

The Yardbirds

John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers

Cream

Blind Faith

Delaney and Bonnie and Friends

The Plastic Ono Band

Derek and the Dominos

He has played guitar with virtually everybody, from B.B. King to Bob Dylan to the Allman Brothers to John Lennon and George Harrison.

We wish him and Jim happy 70th birthdays with this performance by Clapton of one of his hit songs, Layla.

* Now I don't know where I got that but Jim Willi tells me that he's only 67. And he's continuing his "remarkable career" in broadcasting. Sorry, boss.

BIRTH DAY

It is said you can tell a person's "real" age by looking at their hands and/or their neck.  Botox et al can keep the face looking young long after it's time comes to age.  But wrinkles and liver spots in the hands and the neck tell the true story.

That's my left hand this morning.

And there's my all-important right hand, the "mouse" hand.  Granted, it's held up off the table but the wrinkles do tell the tale.

My birthmates - Barbra Streisand (70 today) and Shirley MacLaine (78 today) both look pretty good, to my eyes.  Happy birthday to both of them.

Today is my 73rd birthday, though I am only 72 years old.  My grandfather used to say the day you were born was your first birthday, hence the distinction.  When I mention that to my friend, Steve, he always says "Oh, yeah, you count them like the Chinese."

At any rate, today is my birthday and SWMBO is taking me to lunch at a perhaps appropriate restaurant in Jerome, Arizona.  It's called "The Asylum."