March 15 My Birthday Today, And Others.

    Most folks consider this an important date in one's life, the one day of the year to celebrate your coming into this world, but after you have had a whole pile of them, they sort of loose their appeal I think. None the less, on March 15, this day back in 1954, in Mission BC, a child came into this world. His ambitious, studious nature carried him on to higher education, with great success in business affairs. Pragmatic, philanthropic, and a goal orientated member of his church and community.
A charismatic leader of men, and the desire of women.

   About the same time, over in the next room, my Mom had just given birth to me, and according to my older siblings, the doctor's words at the time range from "Good lord!", to "Good luck with that!". Mom says I arrived when I damn well felt like it, and still not sure if I was worth the inconvenience.

Truth of the matter was, I arrived before the doctor got there.

"Going to make his own way in life." were his actual words, before running off to catch up with his foursome back at the golf course.

Well, I never had much in common with that other chap, but all in all, things have worked out alright so far.

     I brought down a box and blew the dust off some old journals that I had almost forgotten about, and had a good chuckle seeing what I was doing on birthdays of past.

Just a few sentences, my entries brief usually, not much detail, and often understated.

I can still read between the lines though.

 Like this entry on my birthday in 1995, scrawled quickly by candle-light under a mosquito net out in the remote wild lands of Central America. I know I had a few Caribbean rums in me before hammock time, and was no doubt played out from the days activities.

    I see I had turned 41. I've drawn a little smiley face sun to signify the weather that day.

'Son of a bitch it hot today...' it starts. If it was hot and uncomfortable enough to mention right off, you can rest assured, it was.

'Accomplished quite a bit.' I state casually. That means I survived the day in one piece.

'51 guys on job today.' That's a lot of people running around the operation with no little amount of dangers, then feeding, entertaining and housing them all out there in jungle-land.

Never a dull moment for sure.

 Other entries, like 1991 when I was in the motorcycle business, are more mundane.

I see I just turned 37, and I thought I was getting old! I wish....

Coral Ann, the thoughtful and charming secretary had brought in a birthday cake she had made. I took advantage of the sunny day to clean up back of the shop. I probably would have gone out for a steak dinner that night, giving the bone later to my best girl Fang.

   My beat up 1981 diary describes my 27th birthday in the rough and tumble gold town of Dawson City Yukon, holed up in the Eldorado Hotel while I waited on parts for a gold drilling rig my partners and I were using to test some ground way in the hinterland beyond the Indian River. But for the meantime, I was cooling my heels in town, watching HBO in the room, writing in my journal and waiting for a reasonable hour to go down to eat before partaking in the real entertainment for the evening, the legendary Sluice Box Lounge.
   Anyone who was anyone in the gold mining business frequented this establishment while in town. More deals were made, more business was done, and more brain cells were killed there than anywhere else in town. I had a celebratory glass or two with dinner, so by the time I made my grand entrance through the swinging doors of the Sluice Box Lounge, I already had a pretty good dose of personality showing. Someone, I'd speculate it was probably me, let it slip out it was my birthday, bringing on trays of shooters and liquors from behind the hotel bar with attractive names like Sluice Juice, Moose Drool, and Sled Dog Milkshake. Names that are pronounceable, and easy to order, even when you have had too many.

   The Sluice Box Lounge at the time was home to a strange and well known Yukon tradition. As the story went, in the olden days out on one of the gold creeks a miner had froze his toes, one of which he self-amputated with the aid of his axe on a chopping-block out at the wood-pile. The shriveled toe eventually made it's way to town and sat for decades in a jar behind the bar at the Eldorado Hotel.
   At some point, a severely pickled customer decided to add the semi-preserved toe to his drink, thus, to the amazement of his friends, who probably came up with the idea in the first place, drank the first of what was to become the legendary Sourtoe Cocktail. Years later some character swallowed the toe, and believe it or not, someone else just happened to have a preserved toe and mailed it to Dawson City to keep the tradition of the Sourtoe Cocktail alive. 

It is that nameless woman that I have to thank for the following life experience.
   I don't know if the Sourtoe Cocktail was as much of a tradition, as another way to have a good laugh at the expense of some poor brute that has been primed just right. Back then you had to be sponsored by some well meaning person, certainly no self respecting inebriate would order one for himself. Debbie's parents worked out on the gold creeks, and she did the late shift behind the hotel bar. Over time she had developed a keen eye for young smart-asses in the proper state of mind for a good toeing. She had a consultation with Capt. Dick Stevenson, a local character, river boat captain, and keeper of the pickled toe. The revered jar was carefully brought down and set upon the saloon bar, bringing a hush about the lively lounge patrons.

   For reasons I don't recall, my recollection gets a little murky around this point in the evenings festivities, but I remember the gang all gathering around while Capt. Dick fished in the murky jar with a pair of tongs from the hotel kitchen. Getting hold of a nasty looking blackened object he shook it off and plopped it in the fresh drink that sat before me, then poking it into the ice and giving it a stir with a tobacco stained finger. I looked hesitantly into my refreshment, before leaning back on my bar-stool and addressing the crowd...
"Make mine a double!" I stated, getting a great laugh.

   The enthusiastic on-lookers gathered around are to ensure you don't cheat and put your glass down before you get to the really good part with the old toe in it, and to give you the bums-rush toward the swinging doors if it looks like you might get sick, where the disgraced toe-partaker would find himself sticking head first into the snow bank out front.

    Rather painfully, I awoke the next day in my room, backwards in bed, older, and very much wiser. On the dresser I discovered a diploma for my performance the evening before, signed by the famous Capt. Dick himself, which I still have. Someone there knew how to spell my name properly, it sure wouldn't have been me, and it looks like the only diploma I'll ever get, so I display it proudly. 

In no few words, it proclaims me to be '...a person capable of almost anything.'

   At any rate, I hope to have plenty more birthdays, though I don't go out and celebrate them anymore I might have a birthday cocktail now and again, but no more drinks containing body parts.