A 50-Year-Old Man

In about three days, my father will be exactly half a century old.

Good gravy, old man, I didn't think of fifty as old until I phrased it that way. Now I'll be making fun of you for at least the next two weeks.

Anyway, in celebration of this milestone in my father's life, I will give here a brief, biased, and partially extrapolated biography.

My father was born in nineteen-sixty. A good, round year, right at the start of a new decade. Granted, nothing else exciting happened on that particular day (except that a world-record low temperature was measured in Vostok, Antarctica), but that means if he ever gets famous for something, his birthday will be celebrated in a Google Doodle without competition from other events. That is a good thing, indeed.

After he was born, he lived somewhere in Connecticut with his parents and his three sisters, I'm pretty sure. Nothing exciting happened until after high school, when he had roommates. Roommates, cats, and motorcycles. There was one roommate, possibly the one named Joe, who participated in some insanity that involved keeping motorcycles in the apartment and motorcycle parts in the kitchen cabinet. For some reason this made sense to them. Probably because they were awesome.

At some point, my dad found Christ. Additionally, Jimmy Carter got out of office, Ronald Reagan got in, and people could get real jobs again, so my dad went to college. Also, at some point, my dad married my mom. It was in these days that he turned into a real person. He ended up getting a job as an engineer and has been more or less stuck in Dilbertland ever since.

In 1989, something very important happened. My dad became a dad. Therefore, I exist. In 1991, my brother came into existence. In 1999, we moved to Florida for some Dad's-job-related reason, and since then, he's been enjoying a snow-free version of Dilbertland and seems to be fairly happy. He has also taken on the stock market as his hobby. He sometimes mimics Jim Cramer, and it's a little scary.

So, as far as I can tell, he's a good father and a good husband and a decent cat-owner. I also think he's harmlessly insane at times, but as my mother tells me that I'm exactly like him, I won't emphasize that point too much. It's mostly related to pun-making and math-liking and making lists of stuff, anyway.

Happy birthday, Dad! We love you! And you're old now.