Blog 167 – 11.20.15

Many years ago I read a wonderful book by Dale Carnegie called How To Win Friends and Influence People. I highly recommend the book to anyone who wishes to do either – win friends or influence people.

I remember one chapter dealt with the importance of remembering people’s birthdays. We have a special place in our heart for those who remember our birthday. It is our unique holiday, a special anniversary we mark throughout our lives. This Sunday will mark my Sixty Fifth Birthday. I am officially old enough for Medicare but I still prefer Jack Benny’s reckoning and by his calculations I will actually be celebrating the Twenty Sixth Anniversary of my Thirty Ninth Birthday. Twenty Six now that is a much more manageable number.

I used to keep a calendar to help remind me of people’s birthdays and then with computers came event reminders and the same with cell phones. I finally got on Facebook this year and am so grateful I get to mark many of my friends’ birthdays with them.  I don’t send cards but I do try to write a few encouraging lines with my Happy Birthday greeting. I figure saying happy birthday in less than twenty five words is a crime for a writer so I try to make your most memorable day a little more so. I admire the effort it takes to pick out just the right sentiment on a card but then I fancy myself a word smith and so I do my best to pick some rightly chosen words. I believe with the saying “It is the thought that counts.” So I want you to know that I have given you some thought especially on your special day.

All of us have our favorite birthday memories and our least favorites too. My friends, family, and loved ones have always gone to great lengths to make my birthdays memorable. Thank you each and all for your kindnesses to me. I will have only been in Laramie, Wyoming for two weeks on my birthday so I will not have had a chance to meet many if any new friends outside of work but like my friend with the Beautiful Mind I am never alone. I am in the words of the Bible encompassed about with a great cloud of witnesses. All of them on Sunday will be singing Happy Birthday, Dear David, Happy Birthday to you. Among those voices some I will hear singing a little louder, my daddy, my mama, my daughter and my brother, Bob Carpus, who shared the same birthday. I will see you all in another forty years or so. Happy birthday to my niece Lauren and to a lady named Sandy whom I learned recently shares the same birthday.

Your friend and fellow traveler, Birthday Boy,
David White