Sorry for the murk, but that’s late November for you. Above, a still from some largely unusable video of Mark the Shark’s 50th birthday party. I hope it’s a measure of how much I like him that I skipped the chance to par-tay with the undergrads celebrating the Wolverine Big 10 title — I’m not sure exactly how we would do this, but I would have figured something out — to par-tay instead with Mark’s family and friends. That’s Leah, the Colts cheerleader, doing MC duties.

This is early in what’s sure to be a lengthening series of half-century celebrations in my circle, and it seems to me this is the best of birthdays. You’re old enough to have learned most of the hard lessons life will teach you, but young enough that, unless you’ve been unlucky or utterly abused your temple, you still feel good on a daily basis to enjoy it all. You’ve lost a friend or three, but you still have most of them, and if you’re very lucky, you have enough that they can fill a room and tell funny stories about you.

Mark is very lucky. They were very funny stories.

Happy birthday!