Blog 3699 – 12.21.2025

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Had he lived, my dad, James C. White, would have turned one hundred and two today. At seventy three he still lived almost twenty years longer than his dad, Thomas F. White. I hope to extend my stay here as dad did his. December 21 is not the ideal birthday for several reasons. It is the shortest day of the year for one, the first day of winter for two, and thirdly and perhaps the biggest deal breaker is that it is so close to Christmas which means that your Christmas gift and birthday gift are most always combined effectively cheating you out of your birthday gift while forcing you to share your birthday with Jesus.

December twenty fifth is not Jesus’s birthday it is a pagan Roman holiday that was repurposed when Emperor Constantine declared Christianity the state religion. But today is my dad’s birthday and I will as long as I live celebrate the day, honoring my father. 

I recall an episode of the nineteen eighties Magnum P.I. TV series starring a young Tom Selleck in which the Hawaiian private investigator celebrates his own deceased father’s birthday in a unique way. He paddles out into the ocean on his surf board and floats quietly reflecting on the life of his dad. This has become an annual custom for Thomas Magnum. On this particular birthday the current takes him far out to sea and he spends much longer reflecting than he intends, but thankfully his friend with a helicopter notices that Magnum has been gone far longer than usual and comes looking for him.

My dad loved hunting in the woods and fishing in a boat or on a bank. His life philosophy was that finding one’s quiet place was paramount typified by one of his favorite fishing shows themes: “Gone fishin’ and not just a wishin’.”

Dad left some biographical sketches of his early life and I found them after he passed and put them together in a little book. I share it with you, my friends, on the 102nd anniversary of the day my dad began his adventure in time and space that began on December 21, 1923 and continued till July 14, 1997.

Happy Birthday, Dad. Thank you for sharing your dreams with me for almost forty-seven years. You and they left a mark. 

Your friend, fellow traveler, and James White’s boy,

David James White 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16c3z7F_vL6uN-bt9Yi_3VNrRX2l_zCEC/view?usp=drivesdk

More Than My Share