ANOTHER BIRTHDAY

by John P. Flannery

BIRTHDAY. I was with several couples years ago, and one of the wives said the men were acting like boys, and I said if you kill the boy in the man you kill the man. I got some bemused looks.

Life requires a playful spirit. Don’t you think? When I’d frown, my Dad would always comment on my knitted brow and tell me to smile — it takes fewer muscles, he’d say, fewer wrinkles.

I sat with my grandfather Charles Flannery as a kid screaming with him at the dumb questions and clumsy answers on the talking head shows on Sunday. My favorite was the cheese danishes he‘d get for me. My Dad had no use for politics or politicians.

In my mind, I’m 18. Still 18. No, really.

My Mom said I was 8 pounds 10 ounces when born. She told me that like I weighed that much in order to offend her with my birth. Now I’m 160 pounds. That’s some sort of progress. Don’t you think? At least it’s measurable.

I’m kind of the last of the Mohicans (the Flannerys). I try to honor my absent Mom, Dad and younger brother Charlie, by what I do and say. My Dad who didn’t have much once told me he gave me his name, that’s the best he could do. And he told me to take care of it.

I have a gifted daughter Diana and stepdaughter Alex. Those are true riches — still young explorers finding who they are and who they may become.

My wife Holly has shared her life and extended family — and cousins I’ve never met, as well as those I have. Now that’s a long story. But I get a kick out of being uncle John. It sounds and feels nice. It feels connected and shared one with the other.

Thanks to all of you who have been friends along this journey called life. In the various theaters we met and worked or played. If this sounds like a dirge, it’s an unconscious acknowledgment of still another birthday. And I don’t really like to look back — except maybe to tell a tall tale. And I have a bunch of those. Of course, it’s nice to make a mark in the space time continuum to recall even for a day whence you began and the when and where you find yourself in the here and now.

Einstein’s theory of relativity began and ended with his study of frames of reference as they moved through space and time.

And my reference point, indeed my focus, as I move ever forward, is a younger mind and I plan on keeping it that way.

JPF