Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Just Another Stooge

I am wearing a Three Stooges tie today. I bought it at a church 2nd-Hand shop sometime last year. It features the original members of the troupe: Moe, Larry, and Curly Howard.

When I was young, the best way my grandmother could get me to come in from playing was to say the Three Stooges were on TV. Channel 9 played the syndicated shorts late in the afternoon. To her credit, Grandmother H— took me to a live performance of the Stooges at Springlake Park. I have no doubt this sacrifice alone guaranteed her a star in her heavenly crown.

I wear the tie as a reminder not to take myself too seriously, on my 51st birthday.

Today, November 22, 2006.

It's a date that resonates for a number of people of a certain age, as April 19 and September 11 do for the current generation. It is on this date, in 1963, that President John F. Kennedy was shot.

So, it's a date that has haunted me. For several years following that coincidental tragedy, I declined any special celebration of my birthday.

As the Wikipedia link makes clear, there are a number of other coincidental occurrences on this date. I share the birth date with such luminaries as Hoagy Carmichael and Arthur Hiller. Ironically, original Stooge Shemp Howard died on the day of my birth, in 1955.

I am still haunted by the coincidence of Kennedy's assassination being on my eighth birthday, but I am certainly less sensitive about it.

I strive to grow old gracefully. I sometimes whimper – with tongue in cheek – when I note my receding hairline and enlarging natural tonsure. I am amused that most of my beard is gray, except for a small patch below my mouth. Sometimes, in b&w pictures, this combination makes me look like I have a goatee rather than a beard.

Newcomers to this space may be interested in the biographical sketches I wrote around this time last year. The index appears on this page (see item 7 under "Prose").

I may have been born an "old soul", but I'm getting younger all the time. I'm learning to laugh at myself. I'm beginning to recognize, and celebrate, my foolishness.

I'm just another stooge.

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