Birthday in Pascagoula

I flew back to Mobile en route to Pascagoula this morning - this wasn't my pilot although I can dream, can't I?

Actually, our plane sat on the runway for a half hour after boarding in order to get something or other "repaired." In order to maximize our discomfort while we waited, Delta turned off the air conditioning and let the plane bake in the 90 degree Georgia heat. The flight attendants suggested we shut the window shades to keep the plane cool (how about fixing the plane before we board, Delta?).

But eventually, we did leave the Atlanta airport, and flew into the much smaller Mobile terminal. But today's big story (at least for me), is it's my birthday. Fifty one big ones.

So just how old am I? Let's put it this way - I was four months old when the first Air Force One was inaugurated for President Eisenhower. I was born the same year as the Interstate Highway System, the polio vaccine, the four-minute mile and the Newport Jazz Festival. I was born the year of Brown v Board of Education, and the year before Rosa Parks refused to go to the back of the bus. I was born the year after Mt. Everest was first successfully climbed.

I was also born along with, and grew up besides, rock 'n' roll. I was alive when Elvis Presley recorded "That's All Right, Mama" and Ray Charles recorded "I Got a Woman."

I got a woman, she's so mean
She throws my shoes in the washing machine.
Beats me up when I'm nude,
Puts chewing gum in my food.

No, Ray didn't sing those words, I'm just goofing on you. But I was one year old when James Brown and the Famous Flames recorded "Please, Please, Please" at WIBB in Macon. I remember being 10 years old when the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show (I remember the Ed Sullivan Show). It was only a few years after that when the music got all weird and psychedelic and, well, more interesting. I turned 18 the year Alice Cooper released the single "I'm 18," and graduated high school the same year he released "School's Out (Forever)."

I was in my early 20s when punk rock first emerged and remember feeling old for the first time in my life when I went to Spit, a Boston punk club on Landsdowne Street in the 70s, and stood out among the mostly 18-year-olds in the joint. But my tastes evolved along with the times, and one of the first things that I did when I moved to Atlanta in 1981 was to see Talking Heads in the Agora Ballroom, and my favorite club was the 688 on Spring Street. I remember seeing Wendy O. Williams and the Plasmatics there. WOW shot herself when I was 44; she was 48.

I was 5 years old the "Day the Music Died," 16 when Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin died, 17 when Jim Morrison bit it, 23 when Lynyrd Skynyrd's plane went down (right here in Mississippi), and 25 when Sid Vicious o.d.'d. I was 26 and teaching high school when John Lennon was murdered, and had to explain the significance of this to teenagers whose whole lives were spent during his career. I was 27 and already knew who Bob Marley was when he died, which is more than a lot of people could say. Ditto Stevie Ray Vaughn, who died when I was 36 (in fact, when the news first came out that a plane went down coming from a blues festival, and the press didn't yet know if it was Stevie Ray or Eric Clapton who was on board, I was praying that it was Clapton and not Stevie who died. Eric, Stevie Ray Vaughn died for your sins, and you haven't recorded anything worth his sacrifice). Ditto Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, who you probably still don't know (shame on you). I was 39 when Frank Zappa died and 40 when Kurt Cobain killed himself.

Signs that I'm getting old: I was 47 when Aaliyah died, and had no idea who she was or why I should care (still don't). Signs that I'm not that old: I'm only four years older than Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore.

And I'm still younger than Kim Basinger.