Cake is just a four-letter word: Debbi turns 60

I totally stole the title of today's post from NPR. It was much better than anything I could come up with. (Except when I worked for a newspaper, we didn't capitalize every word of our headlines. NPR, apparently, uses a different style book.)

I was inspired by Faith to create an awesome list of 60 at 60. It'll take a while to finish it, which is a gift for both you and me. I don't have to look back over my entire life in one swell foop (as my mother used to say), and you don't have to slog through it all in one session (as if you even would).

When I was one, my grandmother adored me and thought I was hers. And I was an only child.

My brother joined the family when I was two. Being an only child didn't last long.

My first memory, when I was three, is of sitting in a corner of the dining room listening to my mother and her friends talk about childbirth. It's a wonder I ever reproduced.

Apparently nothing happened when I was four.

I started school when I was five, wearing a navy-blue dress with tiny little schoolbooks printed on the fabric.

Six? See four.

In my seventh year, my brother and I became big brother and big sister, and we treated the baby like a doll. (My mother would say, "Put that baby down, you're going to make her sick!) We also moved and I met my first BFF. And I got a cat, a white Persian named Tinkerbell Pandora, who would be my constant companion for the next 14 years.

When I was eight a house near us burned to the ground and scared all of us kids to death. I've never trusted homes heated with natural gas since then. Give me all-electric, thankyouverymuch.

Nine. Fourth grade. I remember my teacher telling me I needed to learn to delegate. Apparently I was mad about power even as a young child.

We moved again when I was 10 (I'm a poet and don't know it!), to Wilmington, Ohio, the town I think of as home to this day. I met two more BFFs, one who lived on a farm in the country and one who lived right down the street from me. She and I walked to and from school every day, and her mother had a freshly baked snack for us every afternoon. Ten is when I went from skinny kid to chubby pre-teen.

I learned to play the organ when I was 11 and even went to the county fair to demonstrate how easy it was. My picture was in the paper.

At my 12th birthday party my dad made homemade pizza and my dog ate all the frosting off my cake.

When I was 13 I met the five friends with whom I would go all the way through junior high (that's what we called it back then) and high school. We were a team, a pack, a gangette.

When I was 14 I had my first crush. His name was Bobby. A popular song then was I Want To Be Bobby's Girl. You can only imagine how many times I played that 45 on my little turntable!

When I was 15 my brother introduced me to my second crush and (later, of course) first husband. I dated Jim all through high school.

That's enough for now, more tomorrow. I'll leave you with my favorite birthday quote:

It takes a long time to grow young.

~ Pablo Picasso