Oh, yes, those were the dayz.....

“Those were the days, my friend,

we tho’t they’d never end…”  Gene Raskin (sung by Mary Hopkins)

A few years ago…well, historically speaking anyway, I had a co-worker on the old SP who wuz celebrating his birthday but just happened t’be a little shy about which birthday it wuz…..when I pressed him, he declared that he wuz ‘older than dirt.’

When I pressed him a little more, he finally confessed his age then asked me how old I wuz to which I replied that I wuz ‘three years older than dirt.’

One of the ‘little columns’ in the SacBee is a birthday column that names celebrities which is a trivial thing, I know, but nevertheless interesting, ‘specially to those of us on a downhill slope…..

That’s how I came to read that Pat Boone, he of the clean-cut, boy next door, white buck shoes image, the yang to Elvis Presley’s yin (or vice versa) is 80 years old, my Gawd, eight decades…as I wuz ‘splainin’ to a young(er) friend t’other day, I wuz born in the first half of the last century ’n stated like that, it seems so long ago…’course, on that proverbial other hand, in my mem’ry, it’s like only day before yesterday, give or take a week or so…..

Rusty, the old poodle-dogger is sleeping more ’n more these dayz ’n come to think on it, so’m I…Willie goes to bed early ’n likes to rise ’n shine ’n go ‘round the block t’see what’s happened in the neighborhood overnite…he’s running hither ’n yon while Rusty mostly ambles hither once’t in a while ’n often turns up his old nose altogether at yon…

I, being somewhat decrepit, merely follow along behind…some dogs are leaders by nature ’n other dogs are just followers…in the end, I s’poze, to quote Dr. Pangloss, it all works out for the best...

Anyway now, back to Pat Boone, I m’self, wuz never what’cha might call a big fan tho’ he did have one song that I liked but I can’t remember what it wuz…this mem’ry loss I blame on Old-timers ’n not the other, nasty one…

Anyhow, Boone wuz extremely popular for a day or two back in those halycon ‘fifties…Hollywood tried to make him a star, made a few movies around him (much as they did for Elvis) and then, like so many in his vocation, the spotlight moved on…but, Hey, he had his day in the sun ’n he’s made it to his eighth decade so Happy Birthday to Pat Boone….

It seems the mind rambles whether I pay any attention or not ’n I could go on in this vein but I s’pect since I’m getting bored with it, ever’one else quit reading some time back…hope your day is going as pleasantly as mine seems t’be….

“for my friends, we’re older but no wiser

’n in our hearts, the dreams remain the same.”