Happy Birthday!!! I hope it was JOYFUL!

Hope you celebrated in style, O.J. and a Happy
Belated birthday from me, too

Happy Birthday Ed, I hope it was a good day for you. I got your email and will get back to you. It was so nice to hear from you.

Yes yes yes!! Hope your day was good, and I sincerely wish you a good year ahead, Ed.

Susan

Ed, you are a special person and we enjoy you at the KT.

Happy Belated Birthday!

Thanks, folks ... I was at home ...

... and on Sat. night celebrated with son and his lady at a gathering to hear a family-related country and western band. The leader, John P. Allen, played fiddle with Prairie Oyster for years and in recent years has done a number of gigs on his own. Sister Julie has been a doc, considering retirement, plays string bass, and brother Joe plays various instruments including trumpet, while the offspring of the first two play and sing ... the daughter is vivacious, in training for a nurse, and I figure will make a good one.

Their grandmother and great grandmother was one of Dad's cousins, and her husband was a member of the Ontario legislature for a number of years, about 70 years ago.

They were playing under stress, last Saturday, as their Dad, very ill, was at death's door.

The minister said at the Old Farts' coffee hour this morning that John was taking his Dad's death hard, and that he noted the resemblance of his face to his father's ... but my memory was that there was a substantial difference.

Their Dad has died and there's to be visitation at the funeral home tonight, so I plan to go.

ole joyfuelled ... with part of the fuelling originating here

HOLY UNDERWEAR BATMAN! Belated Happy Birthday OJ.

"ole joyfuelled ... with part of the fuelling originating here."

Aww, that's very sweet, Ed. I'm sorry your friend is having a hard time.

Good to see you again, Cynic, just in time to wish OJ a happy bday. :)

Happy birthday, Ed. Always enjoy reading your contributions to KT.

Again - thanks for your good wishes on my birthday.

Waldie, a cousin, and I were friends in our small high school, where he often played the piano at noon hour. He liked horses, rode one to school and parked it in my Dad's Mom's brother-in-law's barn. He helped his Dad, who was a member of our provincial legislature for several years, operate a timber business, and later began an auction business, from which he retired several years ago. He and his family loved music, and often performed.

His son told me, when I spoke of their nobility in having performed while their father and grandfather was dying, that his last verbal communication with his father was that when he told his Dad that they were going to play at the gathering that night, his Dad sat part way up, said, "Good" and smiled. The show must go on.

He was a jolly, friendly man, of integrity, who built many friendships, so there was a large crowd in attendance at the visitation and the church was nearly filled this morning for his funeral which included a number of stories about him, the family playing their fiddles, bass, mandolin, autoharp, etc. and singing, and a good deal of laughter, and applause - Waldie wouldn't have wanted it otherwise - and we sang, "What a friend we have in Jesus" and "The battle hymn of the republic".

How much happier world ours would be were it peopled by more like he was.

We'll miss Waldie at the Old Farts' club ... as we miss others on their departure.

I've said sometimes that one of the best tributes that we can pay at the death of someone whom we admire is to examine the things about them that pleased us, tweak one or two of the good things so that they'd fit our lifestyle, and emulate those qualities within our own lives.

I had just started down the lunch line ... when I remembered that, having skipped breakfast, and about to have a blood test that required fasting, I was about to misbehave ... so abandoned the line.

Haven't et - yet: filled with expectations .... but the belly says, "I don't find them nearly that full-filling"

ole joyfuelled

Sounds like it was a lovely funeral.

I like this:

"I've said sometimes that one of the best tributes that we can pay at the death of someone whom we admire is to examine the things about them that pleased us, tweak one or two of the good things so that they'd fit our lifestyle, and emulate those qualities within our own lives. "

And I like your puns, Ed!