The plan for Saturday evening was fairly straightforward: To head to the Dakota Inn Rathskeller, another beloved Detroit business absorbed by my friend Paddy Lynch so that it may continue. (His previous purchases: The Schvitz and Dutch Girl Donuts.) But! It was also the 250th birthday celebration for the U.S. Marine Corps, and if you’re wondering how the Marines are older than the country itself, well, so was I, but I read up on it.

The birthday is actually celebrated Monday, November 10, but the 8th was a Saturday. It’s also observed with a cake-cutting and various associated rituals, and a German restaurant on a Saturday night with a resident piano player seemed like as good a place as any.

The bad news: The place was a madhouse, packed to the rafters with German-food enthusiasts, and a 1.5-hour wait for a table. We decided to go to the basement Rathskeller to wait for the cake and singing. Which came around 7:30, with a long windup about Tradition, but not so much that it killed the vibe. The cake is traditionally cut with a Maltese sword, but we’ll use this knife, etc.

And the cake was cut, with the traditional order of serving: First slice to the guest of honor, who was the guy whose family owned the restaurant for two generations before selling it to Paddy. Second slice to the oldest Marine present, i.e., this guy, who fought at Guadalcanal:

Third slice to the youngest Marine, who was very strapping. And then we all sang the Marine Hymn, which contains my favorite passage in a military song, the dis at the very end:

If the Army and the Navy
Ever look on Heaven’s scenes;
They will find the streets are guarded
By United States Marines.

And then the friend I went with started feeling ill, so I took her home and met our third for tapas at a quiet Spanish place.

Happy birthday, Marines, including our own Jeff Gill. Glad the pugil sticks didn’t leave you with brain damage.

The rest of the weekend? Shopping errands work workout until Sunday afternoon, when I swam 2,000 yards, came home and ate ravenously, then dozed and read the afternoon away. In other words, a pretty good one.

Hope yours was, too.