Saturday afternoon birthday.

I don’t normally make a fuss about birthdays here, but what the hell, today is the 50th birthday of one of our most loyal, regular and respectful commenters, so let’s make one. Happy birthday, Brian Stouder. I mean: Happy birthday, Brian Stouder!

Posted at 3:20 pm in Same ol' same ol' |
 

42 responses to “Saturday afternoon birthday.”

  1. Bob (not Greene) said on March 19, 2011 at 4:01 pm

    Happy birthday, Brian! Never met you, but through NN.com I feel like I have come to know you a bit and wish you nothing but the best in your sixth decade. Ouch, that hurts, doesn’t it?

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  2. brian stouder said on March 19, 2011 at 4:11 pm

    You know, I thought I’d be more upset about being 50; but on the other hand, and despite being braced for worse, it IS strange to think “now I’m 50”.

    Anyway – thanks for the shout out! I’m expending some of my birthday points (but hopefully not TOO many, if you get my drift) with Pam to try and get her to post here; she’d have much to add to the Kindle/Nook/tablet ereader discussion, for example; and she always goes on about the various food discussions that arise.

    And let me say – there’s no higher e-praise that a person could have, then to be classed as a respectful commenter by Nancy Nall Derringer, who has such a superb bunch of commenters.

    Honestly, sometime back, I went surfing into the Ashley/Whitebeard retrospectives – and then had the somewhat unnerving (not to say ALTOGETHER JARRING!) experience of seeing long-forgotten comments I made on this and that, years ago. (not good)

    Avoiding making posts like those anymore is something that I try and do – with varying levels of success.

    And tonight is Super Moon!

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  3. coozledad said on March 19, 2011 at 6:19 pm

    Happy birthday, Brian. I got to get out there and wait for the moon to come up.

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  4. Linda said on March 19, 2011 at 7:03 pm

    Happy birthday,Brian, and many more.

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  5. DellaDash said on March 19, 2011 at 7:12 pm

    Full moon over half a century! Many happy returns, Brian.

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  6. Julie Robinson said on March 19, 2011 at 7:15 pm

    Brian, I hope you’re having a terrific birthday. I survived mine and am looking at the double nickel next.

    You can pass along to Pam that I am a new Nook fan after working out a couple of technical wrinkles. The tipping point was packing light for this trip to Florida, and it is a truly amazing little gadget.

    I will say, though, that for those of us over 50, getting two new pieces of technology in less than a week is a steep learning curve. My new phone also came with a data plan so I will be surfing the web right along with the rest of the always-glued-to-their-phone cohort.

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  7. moe99 said on March 19, 2011 at 7:19 pm

    Happy Birthday, Brian. I, too, feel like I have come to know you here. Just be careful about those birthday spankings!

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  8. Cathy D. said on March 19, 2011 at 7:39 pm

    Happy birthday, Brian, from someone surviving the year of the double-nickels.

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  9. Little Bird said on March 19, 2011 at 8:24 pm

    Happy Birthday, I hope it’s been (and continues to be) a good one!

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  10. Laura Lippman said on March 19, 2011 at 8:37 pm

    You youngster! Happy birthday.

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  11. MichaelG said on March 19, 2011 at 8:54 pm

    Happy Birthday, Brian and fifty more!

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  12. del said on March 19, 2011 at 9:39 pm

    Brian, happy birthday. Your comments are a pleasure. It’s clear that you’re “good energy.” Many more!

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  13. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on March 19, 2011 at 9:42 pm

    Brian, Happy Perigee-Syzygy!

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  14. Kirk said on March 19, 2011 at 10:24 pm

    Yeah, many happy returns. Wish I was 50; I’m looking at the next big zero this December.

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  15. Deborah said on March 19, 2011 at 10:32 pm

    Happy Birthday Brian! May you have many, many more. 50’s not so bad.
    The super moon is a bit of a dud in Abiquiu, a bit too cloudy. This is our last night in NM for this trip, sad to say. We’ll be back in August.

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  16. Jolene said on March 19, 2011 at 10:58 pm

    Happy Birthday, Brian. You share a birthday with my not-too-long-ago-departed dad, who was one of the best guys in the world. If I believed in astrology, I’d say there must be something about the day that leads people born then to be especially bright, curious, and amiable, but, since I don’t, will just say I’m glad to have met you.

    Julie: Re the Nook, when we last discussed these gadgets, you said that you’d be able to continue to buy books through the Kickback Lounge to read on the Nook, but I didn’t see a possibility of ordering books in the Nook format on the Amazon site. Can you clue me in?

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  17. prospero said on March 19, 2011 at 11:31 pm

    Brian, Happy Birthday, You’re younger than I . Live long and prosper. Incredibly good music and ‘m sorry to piggyback, but are these assholes kidding? What is wrong with these Savanorollistas? They are loony tunes budget and not scratching an idiotic itch? Does somebody actually think anything on NPR leans any which way? That is more or less made up crap. This is all garbage, and screw these morons. What they are trying to do is to free up licenses to be gobbled up by ClearChannel. All Rush all the time. Guaranteed, we will be left with the moronic radio feed of ClearChannel, which means, no radio. I grew up listening to fm radio in Detroit. And BCN in Boston. Thanks a lot you GOP assholes. XYZ and KNR, CKLW maybe, in the car. The canuck station was playing Brown Eyed Girl, a truly great song, when XYZ was playing Astral Weeks, centuries ahead, and Velvets. Huge difference. Then again, I was listening when a BCN DJ dropped the needle on I Feel Free.

    Detroit was way out front. We had
    MC-5, and Robin Sermour. Boston had Earth Opera, and Charles Laquidara. Trade you a DJ. Take Chuck, leave the bands the same. More polite.

    Brian, I’m getting close to the one that starts with 6 and ends in 0. Don’t really give a shit. I’m alive, which was a crapshoot 40 years ago. I’m not decrepit. Three mile+ swim day after tomorrow if I don’t keel. Daily on the bicycle. Conjugal relations most days. Just a number, and there are people that will miss me when I Die in My Footsteps Before I Go Down Under the Ground.. I like this cover. There are lots of them. I think people glom onto this song when they get cancer diagnoses, or when they just start creaking audiby. One way or another, probly neither one of us is going anywhere soon, and happy birthday. Many more to celebrate, bud.

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  18. Dexter said on March 20, 2011 at 12:46 am

    50. Jack Nicholson was asked how it was for him when he turned 50.
    He said something like how 40 wasn’t s*** but 50? “Fifty is no damn good.”
    And now Jack is well past 70. Tempus, it shore do fugit!

    I am well past your age, Brian, and I remember my 50th very well. Coincidentally, my daughter and her husband took us to your fave restaurant that night, The Cork & Cleaver up on the north side. It’s a shame we haven’t been back. We used to eat there a few times a year.

    Happy birthday to you. Friday, we commemorated the tenth anniversary of Dad’s passing. That also was no damn good back then, but it’s all in perspective now. Ol’ tempus, working its magic.

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  19. Bob (Not Greene) said on March 20, 2011 at 1:15 am

    Brian, you gotta be honored. A Prospero rant to boot!

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  20. MichaelG said on March 20, 2011 at 3:17 am

    Holy shit! The wind is roaring and the lights are flickering. I opened the door and it was almost sucked out of my hand. It’s raining but the rain is skipping over the street sideways and it doesn’t really seem like rain. They were talking about 65 mile an hour winds and I can believe them. My house is tight and I normally can’t hear the wind, but tonight, wow. It’s scary. The trees are moving dramatically, I mean the whole freaking tree trunk. As long as one doesn’t fall on the house I guess I’m alright. I’m going to go to bed and pull the covers over my head.

    We’re all getting older, and at sixty six I feel like one of the senior citizens at nn.c. At this age, acquaintances are starting to sicken and die all around me. Days, months and years are coming faster and faster. None of my closest are gone but some are getting fragile and I know it won’t be long. Yet I feel strong and loose and easy and not old at all. I don’t know what any of it means but all I can say is that age happens amazingly fast. Yesterday I was eagerly waiting to turn sixteen so I could get my license. Today I’m an old man.

    Jeez, the house rocked to that one. The wind is really roaring – that subway sound.

    Yesterday I had lunch with my once wife. In the darkened restaurant she looked young and beautiful. She also dresses for our lunches. In the rain soaked daylight outside she looked impossibly young and lovely at fifty nine. That competitive bicycle stuff really works.

    No wisdom here other than to say that family is important. Don’t ever fuck it up. Any more and I’m gonna get maudlin.

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  21. ROgirl said on March 20, 2011 at 6:43 am

    Cheers, Brian. Getting older, well… it beats the alternative.

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  22. derwood said on March 20, 2011 at 9:48 am

    Happy Birthday Brian

    I’m not far behind you.

    -daron

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  23. Connie said on March 20, 2011 at 10:07 am

    Happy Birthday Brian! I can claim to have met this fine gentleman, for a quick lunch at a Taco Bell in downtown Fort Wayne. He was fine company, and I love your writing voice.

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  24. MarkH said on March 20, 2011 at 10:19 am

    Happy belated Brian, and many more!

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  25. brian stouder said on March 20, 2011 at 12:27 pm

    Thanks very much, everyone. Last night we went to a restaurant I’ve never visited before – the Trolley Bar and Grill (further north, on Dupont road) and had a very pleasant supper. (As we get older, this seems like a good idea)

    It is always equal parts pleasant and enlightening to stop in and see what’s going on here at NN.c each day, and of course, once my heart quit racing this was an exceedingly pleasant thread to read, too!

    I hope the wind has eased out MichaelG’s way. My mom (who, afterall, did all the work 50 years ago at Parkview hospital) STILL considers herself a “California girl”, despite being born in Brooklyn, and spending most of the last 60 years here in Fort Wayne! She joined the Navy and got sent to Oakland/Alameda, where she met my Hoosier dad, and that was it; despite almost 60 years in Fort Wayne, March 19 is always referred to as the day the swallows return to Capistrano.

    Someday, I shall have to visit California, and see what all this enchantment is about.

    Aside from the returning swallows, good ol’ March 19 in more recent years has become notable for the start of the US invasion in Iraq; and now it looks like it will mark the beginning of US combat operations in Libya.

    All in all, gimme the swallows!

    edit: and Connie – that was indeed a pleasant lunch…although I’d have said we ate at Rally’s by the library, now that you say Taco Bell, that does indeed sound right. I always get details like that wrong, especially when there’s a beautiful woman involved!

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  26. MichaelG said on March 20, 2011 at 1:14 pm

    Thanks, Brian and yeah. We’re still here and the wind has died down.

    I might point out that while I was writing maudlin shit last night I was listening to some really nice classical jazz on an NPR station. None of that on Clear Channel.

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  27. Jolene said on March 20, 2011 at 2:14 pm

    I always get details like that wrong, especially when there’s a beautiful woman involved!

    What a silver-tongued devil you are, Brian. I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.

    Not maudlin at all, MichaelG. I was very touched by what you said–about both love and age.

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  28. Linda said on March 20, 2011 at 2:51 pm

    Fifty was a comforting age, in a way. I gave up on a lot of the ridiculous self-improvement schemes, because once you’re fifty, some things are not improveable flaws, they are just the way you are. And that’s o.k.

    I saw an old friend in her late 70s around the holidays, and she smiled when I told her my age (I’ll be 53 on Thursday). “You’re just a baby. You have a lot more adventures.” I hope she’s right.

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  29. Julie Robinson said on March 20, 2011 at 3:00 pm

    Linda, Happy Birthday in advance, since I’m not sure about internet while I’m in Florida.

    Jolene, sorry to mislead you about the Nook–you can buy the actual Nook on Amazon, but not the books. If they were smart, they’d do that too. So far I’ve downloaded free books from our library and bought one of the .99 specials from B&N. Oh, I did buy one other–a prayer book I’ve been using for Lent. I had it from the library in print and was going to buy it anyway. So far I like, like, like the Nook.

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  30. jcburns said on March 20, 2011 at 4:37 pm

    Happy equinox-y birthday, Brian. Wishing you continued wisdom and continued motivation to share it with us now and again.

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  31. Dexter said on March 20, 2011 at 8:16 pm

    Now I do feel old. I used to eat at the original Trolley Bar Restaurant which was close to where the Allen County Jail is now.
    For fun, tell me where this hot dog and cuppa chili came from. ( You must have been to Fort Wayne to answer this.)
    http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_z8Ke-TpXHAM/S_BWnGMLMlI/AAAAAAAACyE/qDTsPZxLbMw/s1600/3.Food.JPG

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  32. Joe Kobiela said on March 20, 2011 at 8:32 pm

    Coney Island? on main? Fort Wayne?
    Pilot Joe

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  33. Deborah said on March 20, 2011 at 8:59 pm

    I’m back in Chicago. Don’t mean to be picky JC but it’s the equinox not the solstice that we are coming up on.

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  34. brian stouder said on March 20, 2011 at 9:55 pm

    I go with Pilot Joe’s guess. And the aroma off one of those weenies can be overpowering, too!

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  35. Rana said on March 20, 2011 at 10:37 pm

    A belated happy birthday, from a fellow March baby!

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  36. JayZ(the original) said on March 21, 2011 at 12:06 am

    I was 50 at one time. Happy Birthday, Brian.

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  37. Dorothy said on March 21, 2011 at 8:51 am

    Rats I’m late to the party. Hope you had a fun birthday, fellow 50-something! I admit I was staying away from one of my fave internet pages because I was so upset about Pitt’s loss to Butler. And I know there are Butler fans on here so I had to wait a little while until the hurt lessened. It’s still upsetting but I’ll put that aside cuz I like and respect all y’all too much. But basketball probably won’t be on at our house for quite a few months now.

    I spent my 50th birthday moving out of our house in South Carolina, heading to Ohio. It sure took my mind off of turning 50. The 4th anniversary of that event will come this August 31st! LORD how time flies!

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  38. Jolene said on March 21, 2011 at 9:31 am

    Thanks for the clarification, Julie. Hope your trip to Florida goes well.

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  39. Kim said on March 21, 2011 at 10:36 am

    Many happy returns on the day, Brian. Here’s to the second half, as we’ve started to refer to it in the last few days since my husband marked that milestone as well.

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  40. LAMary said on March 21, 2011 at 11:13 am

    Sorry to be late to the birthday party. I had to work on Saturday. A job fair gearing up for the opening of a new wing on one of the other hospitals owned by the company I work for.
    Fifty is nothing. I’m 58 but I don’t feel it. In some ways I feel younger than my two colleagues who are ten years younger. That generation seems to have been born middleaged. No sense of adventure.
    I hope you had a happy day of unlimited diet cokes and I’m with Connie on your writing voice. I think I know exactly how you feel about your topic, whether it’s passionate or angry or excited to share an interest. Thank you for letting us all in on your world.

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  41. 4dbirds said on March 21, 2011 at 2:42 pm

    I am sehr spat but Happy birthday.

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  42. brian stouder said on March 21, 2011 at 9:20 pm

    Well, I learned the meaning of “sehr spat”, and that’s pretty cool. Mary – the day was indeed full of icy cold Diet Cokes*, topped off by a great meal with cheese cake creme brulee for dessert, so life is good!

    I think just the thing you point to – recognizing people’s voices and their feelings – is (to me) the draw. I think the allure of Nancy’s site is that this place is preeminently an intelligent women’s site, which also welcomes men. I’ve been haunting the cheap seats here at nn.c for about 8 years (give or take), and I love eavesdropping (and kibitzing) on all sorts of interesting discussions. And Nancy has perfected the art of quiet expectations for her peanut gallery, and (when need be) efficient and rapid dispatch of hecklers.

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