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Significant or not ... birthdays need to be faced with a little humor

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Luv my Job
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By
Esther Frakes, copy editor

Well, I had another birthday last week … not a significant one, though.
 At St. John, a birthday is significant if it can be divided by five. Significant birthdays are announced and prayers are offered. (Wouldn’t it be great if we only needed to count those birthdays!)
I’m getting too close to the birthday numbers that often lead to an open house … and serious birthday cards.
At our August coffee get-together of retired English/foreign language teachers, our group celebrated four birthdays, because no fewer than four of the seven gals present have August birthdays. It was delightful!
One of the retirees cleaned out her stock of cards that she had accumulated as a result of laughing hysterically at them in the card aisle and buying them because certainly they would be appropriate for someone, sometime.
Since so many of the persons she had in mind when she purchased the cards are no longer with us, she decided we would be the perfect group to unload them on. There was a card for everyone there … even the non-birthday gals!
The challenge for her was that she didn’t want to insult any of us, so the cards were not addressed to any one person. She spread them out in the middle of the table and everyone grabbed one – like grab bags. (Do any of you remember Renfro’s Variety with the brown grab bags that were a bargain … and a surprise? Fun!)
The birthday cards were delightful … mildly insulting, kind of edgy, poking fun at all the body parts that have gone south … and don’t plan to return.
I have a stock of cards like that, too. I still haven’t been brave enough to gift them … but I keep them anyway, still hoping. ...
One such card that I think is funny has a likeness of Granny of “The Beverly Hillbillies” on the front, and the inside caption reads, “They can’t say we haven’t held our looks.”
Another shows a woman client with a tattoo artist inside of a tattoo parlor, and the caption reads, “Well, if you want me to tattoo all of your age spots, I’ll have to order more ink.”
One of my very favorites shows a very old woman in a swing, and this is the verse: “Jesus loves us, this I’m told, even though we’re really old …
In spite of wrinkles and false teeth, He sees the young soul underneath.”
So my attitude about birthdays is to try to keep my young soul and to rejoice that I am celebrating another year … and laugh about it.
How about you? Maybe it’s time we reclaim our sense of humor and debate something nonsensical in our letters to the editor – and discuss the pros and cons of insulting birthday cards versus kind, loving sentiments.
Happy August Birthday to Linda Limesand, Cheryl Roberts and Elaine Harms … and to our own Rick Peterson!

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