Belated Birthday Blog

Since I've written about almost every other family birthday this year, I would be remiss if I didn't say a few words about my own birthday, which I celebrated last Saturday.

On November 14, 1946, I was born at Camden Hospital in Camden, Arkansas, the first child of Marion Reynolds Walker and Thomas Benton Walker.  My birthday always seems to fall on the opening weekend of deer season, and I think that year was no exception.  In fact, they probably had to retrieve Daddy from the deer woods when Mother went into labor.

This year, I am using deer hunting as my brother's excuse for failing to remember my birthday.  Although there is wifi at deer camp, there is no cell service, so I guess I'll let him off the hook.

My mother says she rarely got to hold me.  Since I was the first grandchild on both sides of the family, I got passed around a lot.  When I was still a baby, my grandfather built the bridge over the Ouachita River in Camden, and when they poured some of the concrete they put my footprints in it.  I don't recall crossing that bridge a single time that I wasn't reminded of that.

This year we celebrated my birthday in Little Rock.  On Saturday morning Claire's aunts had a baby shower for her and my granddaughter Lucy, who will be born in February.  Saturday afternoon, we celebrated my great niece Emma's birthday.  She was a year old on Friday.

My nephew Scott even offered me my own birthday cupcake, but I refused to wear the frosting coated birthday hat or to smear my face in the icing.  Best leave those things to the one-year-old.

Saturday night we enjoyed pizza at my sister Margie's house and watched the Razorbacks beat Troy 56-20.  At halftime the family "sang" to me, and presented me with my own birthday cake, a carrot cake made from scratch by Claire.

Footnote:  Earlier in the day Walker called and sang "Happy Birthday."  At 2 1/2 he knows all the words, and unlike the rest of my family, he can carry a tune.