The Battle of Hastings, 1066. This is how I remember the date of my father’s birthday.
October was so filled with birthdays of so many friends and family members when I was young that I had to take some extra measures to remember when each one was. My mother (30th), Dad (14th), my best friend in grade school (24th), my best friend in high school (31st), my first boyfriend (29th), my eldest nephew (30th), and another high school friend (16th) all celebrated October birthdays. My dear next door neighbor who lived to be 105 and was like a grandmother to my daughter was born October 7, 1904.
I remembered: 10 – 14, 10 – 66. My dad was not evil so his birthday could not have three sixes associated with it and the birthday I confused with his was a high school friend’s who had a 10/16 birthday. His birthday could not be 10-16 because his birthday was on the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings and if it was the 16th the anniversary would be 10/16, 1066 – three 6s. And growing up in the Bible belt I knew three 6s was bad news. (I so wish I had not grown up with such superstition!) So his birthday must be on 10/14/1915.
Does anyone else in the world use such convoluted memory tools?
My mom would be celebrating her 100th birthday on the 30th. I think she was actually born on Halloween, as her mother always told her she was born 5 minutes before midnight. Midnight would have meant Halloween and thus a questionable alliance via birth with dark forces.
Mom and my friend with the Halloween birthday loved their connection. I guess there was something about being born on a high holiday of the Old Religion that connected them. My friend lived to be 21 and died on Friday the 13th. My mom lived to be 92.
Birthdays of those who have passed on can be odd, especially when the cluster contains more who have died than those alive. But I’m going to have a cake for Mom’s 100th birthday. We celebrated my 50th birthday together a few weeks before she passed on. Dad liked apple pie. I think I will make a pie this weekend. Why not?
The Alternate Universe of September 11
Yes, we all remember 9/11. I do not want to diminish how we speak of it and remember that horrible day and the many unfortunate things that came out of it. But I remember everything, no matter what. I remember my the date of my parent’s wedding anniversary, old boyfriend’s birthdays, the dates my pets died. I remember things I don’t want to remember or have no use for or reason to remember. So today, I am trying to obscure the date of September 11th for myself, so that other things pop up instead of the New York tragedy. The only thing I’ve been able to have reliably co-appear in my mind with the recognition of this date so far is the birthday of Christina Taylor Green who was born September 11, 2001 and died, in Tucson, on January 8th 2011.
It is mid-day after posting this, and I want to add a link the beautiful piece written by the neighbor who just wanted to take her young friend to meet her Congresswoman. Her blog post: Happy Birthday CTG
Photo credit: kconnors from morguefile.com
But from many sources around the net, see the links at the bottom of this post, I have collected a bunch of September 11 events that have nothing to do with planes and the twin towers.
Peace-related Events
Sep 11th – Benjamin Franklin writes “There never was a good war or bad peace”
1906 – Mahatma Gandhi coins the term “Satyagraha” to characterize the Non-Violence movement in South Africa.
U.S. History
1609 – Explorer Henry Hudson sailed into New York harbor and discovered Manhattan Island and the Hudson River.
Sep 11, 1851: The Christiana Riot in Lancaster County Pennsylvania which foreshadowed Civil War strife
1857 – Mountain Meadows Massacre, Mormons dressed as Indians murder 120 colonists in Utah
1897 – A ten-week strike of coal workers in Pennsylvania, WV, and Ohio came to an end. The workers won and eight-hour workday, semi-monthly pay, and company stores were abolished.
1990 – U.S. President Bush vowed “Saddam Hussein will fail” while addressing Congress on the Persian Gulf crisis. In the speech Bush spoke of an objective of a new world order – “freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace”.
September 11 Birthdays
Brian DePalma 1940
Mickey Hart (Grateful Dead) 1943
Leo Kottke 1945
Obscure Boomer Music History from September 11
1963 – “The Great White Wonder” first appears in a record store in Los Angeles, CA. The “bootleg” of Bob Dylan songs is believed to be the first bootleg album.
1977 – David Bowie and Bing Crosby recorded a duet version of “The Little Drummer Boy.” The song appeared on Crosby’s “Merrie Olde Christmas” LP.
1996 – David Bowie’s single “Telling Lies” was released exclusively on the Internet. It was the first time a new single by a major selling artist was released exclusively on the Internet.
Sources:
History for September 11 – On-This-Day.com
September 11 Events in History
http://www.historyorb.com/events/september/11
Blood flowed first at Christiana Riot | Lancaster County and the Civil War – LancasterOnline.com
Perspective Brought Home: Mourning on My Birthday
It had not been a great week leading up to my beautiful, silly dog, Mr. Worf, dying from an attack by Africanized bees the day before my 55th birthday.
I suffered from medical abuse as a child and interaction with my family can dredge up lots of stress and sadness. With every passing year I understand more and more of the glaringly maladaptive communication patterns my family accepted as normal. I just last week had a particularly distressing interaction with family members over tax payments on a bit of land we jointly inherited. Even though I moved to the other side of the country to start a more normal life to minimize the frequency of hurtful reminders, such reminders naturally exist in the honest life I have tried to build for myself. I became quite sad when talking to a sister-in-law reminded me of how much unhappiness can come to so many when a person choses to act dishonestly, unethically, or solely in their own self interest.
Even though I consider myself a pretty successful person who manages her severe depression pretty darn well these days, family-related funks I experience can demoralize and demotivate me when they reverberate like a strong sound wave throughout my being with a particularly meaningful tone. I allowed the house to become messy, seemed distant to my husband, who is also a child abuse survivor, and we both ended up having a particularly nasty argument from the immature vantage points of our separate corners in the boxing rink where we both retreated with the tantrum clenched fists of the wounded children we both have inside. The argumnent happened over finances, like so many other marriage arguments do, in the early hours of Mothers Day.
I knew this day would be difficult because my little girl graduated and moved to the northern reaches of midwest a few months ago. But the family funk topped off with an argument turned the day into a dark and unfortunately familiar unpleasant place where I just could not connect with any happiness, calmness, or positive mindset.
It took a couple days but by Tuesday afternoon I was headed out of the funk. I wend shoe shopping an early birthday present for myself and found two adorable pair of sandals at a discount store for a gonga deal. My hubby and I were starting to chat normally again when the horrible day before my birthday happened.
I spent my birthday mourning the loss of a dear pet, who was as much friend as pet. It sucked. But out of that day friends from around the country, people I know primarily from game playing, and neighbors, and yes you, you dear readers, offered me touching messages of sympathy, affirmations of friendship, hugs, calls of concern, and expressions of the sadness they and you all too felt. Birthday wishes tempered with sympathy came from husband, step-daughter, and daughter. This real touching outreach of human to human comfort touched me deeply and helped me get through the worst birthday of my life and come out on the other side of that day, into today, with a renewed appreciation of all the miracles of connection that life offers. Life is relationships, and I’m so grateful for the beautiful friendships and sharing I have had and will continue to have with friends,and readers, and even with earthly spirits that through an accident of birth we call family.
Life is good. Sometimes is is too short. But oh, it is sweet.
Namaste.