Eighteen in Sweltering Summer Month

What’s your favorite birthday memory? What is your worst birthday memory?
Best? I had a job interview on my birthday. One of the women on the panel I glanced at several times; “I know this chick from somewhere.”

But I never figured it out.

For the next five years, we worked in the same building never making the connection until one day I was talking to the guy in the office next door to hers. He was (probably still is?) married to a German woman he’d met when he was stationed over there. We were talking about the places we’d been, and I mentioned the place where I’d lived the longest.

From the next office, “HEIDELBERG??!?”

Yes, that’s where I knew her from, almost twenty years later.
She was a cheerleader, when I played football. She was a couple of years ahead of me, so we didn’t know each other that well, but I recognized the face.

(We won’t get into the fact that I’d been trying hard to play kissyface with one of the other squadmembers back then....)

So, with that, I got that job, and it really did suit me in a lot of different ways.
It’s where I was when I got really sick.
It’s where I was when I married.
It’s where I was when I lost my dad.
It’s where I was wehn I finally took a week-and-a-half off for the first time in years to honeymoon with my wife....

So, yeah, I remember that birthday, and that interview for those reasons.

Worst birthday? I don’t know.

The last one wasn’t great, because I was still unemployed, and we were running out of money......
I think I’ve had to work through a few.
Maybe a hurricane at the radio stations one year?
I don’t remember.
I’ve been sick a couple, though none self-induced.

I want Baskin Robins’ Ice Cream Cake.

Last updated August 18, 2015