I celebrated my birthday. Again. This is getting old (pun intended), but it’s still fun. My annual birthday season continued with Kari’s family and with Kathy and Annette. We did the usual stuff, but the best part was being together. My gifts were everything I’d asked for, including the games we recently played with Jeff’s family–the classic version of Catch Phrase (trust Kathy to find an old version in excellent condition), Skull King, and Mahjong. Kari applied her newly-acquired sewing skills and made a re-usable gift bag to conceal Skull King and a pair of socks with books on them in recognition of my love of reading. Sky’s girlfriend thoughtfully gave me a plant she’d recently propagated.

Ted buys me a pot of spring bulbs every year in late winter so that I can get an early start enjoying my favorite season. He gave me some daffodils in February and then, for my birthday, he gave me a pot of tulips. This is the first time I’ve had two sets of spring flowers to enjoy before they start blooming outdoors. Thank you, Ted.

My birthday dinner was simple: a buffet of carry-out pizza. It was a perfect meal with no cooking and minimal clean-up.

There was time to relax in the hot tub, time to play some of my new games, and time for my traditional Vienna Torte birthday cake.

It was so much fun to celebrate my birthday with friends in early March, with Jeff’s family in mid-March, and with our daughters in late March, that I’ve decided to have lots more birthdays.

April 1 was the 45th anniversary of the day my oldest brother died in the crash of a B-52 in Upper Michigan. Denny was stationed at Sawyer AFB, Marquette, MI and was a substitute crew member on a routine training flight because the assigned navigator had an ear infection and was not cleared to fly. My family experienced two weeks of shock and stress while we waited for the bodies to be released so that we and the other families could schedule funerals. I remember my mother saying that she always thought funerals were rushed too much and that, if you were only given a little more time, that final step would be easier to bear. We all learned that was not true.

Denny’s remaining family included his wife and two children, ages 3 and 5. This is a picture of Denny with his son, Eric. Before Eric was old enough to sit (and barely able to hold his head up), Denny and he could perform this balancing act. It’s a good memory to hold in my heart.

Today is a day to celebrate our families. I usually post a single photo of my siblings and me to mark the day, but this year, I’ve decided to pay tribute to six generations of siblings in my family.

I only have one photo of a grandparent with siblings. My Grandma S. is on the right, standing beside her brother, Phil and her sister, Gladys. The seated lady is Grandma’s mother, my Great-grandma D.

Ted’s and my parents and their siblings are the next generation. It’s unfortunate that the only picture I have of Ted’s dad with his siblings was taken on a day that Paul was enjoying a home visit from the hospital. I always think of him in that chair, but never in a reclining position. His siblings are Cella, Bob, and John. The picture of Ted’s mother with her older sisters, Verna and Leona, was taken before her younger brother was born.

My dad is the blonde standing in the center back. His youngest brother, Ken, wasn’t born yet. The other siblings are Gerry, Arch, Lynn, and Bob. My mom is on the left of her siblings, Gibby, Shirley, and Ruth. Two of her brothers had already died when this photo was taken.

In generational order, Ted and I are next. The only picture I have of him with all of his siblings is the one below: Gary, Ted, Mutzie, and Dan. I’m eleven in the photo with my siblings. Left to right, it’s Russ, Tom, Steve, Denny, and me.

After Ted and me, our children are the next generation. We took this picture at the zoo in 1979.

Our kids have grown up, so now we have sibling grandchildren as well. On the left is a 2021 photo of Thom and Katie’s family: Julian, Sefton, and Hadley. The top right is Jeff and La’s family in 2010: Alex, Kyra, and Zack. Dean and Kari’s family is in the lower right in 2017: Sky, Dylan, and Teddy.

And the beat goes on. Our first great-grandchild, Alex and Kaitlyn’s son, just celebrated his first birthday. So far, he doesn’t have any siblings, but I’m including him here as the first member of his future sibling group. Here’s Ollie.

I learned today that April 7 (tomorrow) is National Beer Day, a beer-specific holiday in the United States. It follows that tonight is (this is true) designated as New Beer’s Eve. National Beer Day was first celebrated in Virginia in 2009 after Justin Smith, at the urging of a friend, posted the idea on his Facebook page. The holiday was officially recognized in the Congressional Record by Rep. Dave Bath (R-VA 7th Congressional District) in 2017.

The Volstead Act enforced the 18th Amendment (prohibition) by prohibiting more than 0.5% alcohol in beverages. It was widely thought that ratifying the 21st Amendment to repeal national prohibition might take years, in spite of strong support to legalize alcoholic beverages. To circumvent this problem, the Cullen-Harrison Act legalized the sale of beer with an alcohol content of 3.2% by weight–higher than allowed by the Vostead Act, but still believed to be too low to be intoxicating.  The Cullen-Harrison Act became effective April 7, 1933. After signing the legislation, FDR quipped, “I think this would be a good time for a beer.” And so it began.

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