Just happy.

First off, let me say that I forgot ONE ingredient in the Vegetable Cheese Chowder, so if you copied it, go back quick, and fix it.

Now for the music:

Happy Birthday to me.
Happy Birthday to me.
I can't believe that I'm this OLD.
Happy Birthday to me.

SIXTY FREAKING FIVE years ago, my mother gave birth to me in the old Moses Ludington Hospital
in Ticonderoga, NY.  She stayed in the hospital for EIGHT days, for a perfectly normal birth.
 My cousin, Billy, was born on the 20th, and the nurse came out and told my father that he had a son.  He didn't.  He had a nephew.  The next day he got me.  I wonder if that's why he called me Tom until I was about 12?
Anyhow, Billy was an RH baby.  His Mom had my two cousins, Justina and Jo Ann, but her third baby, Jacqueline, had died at birth.  That's how it is with the RH factor, your first births are fine, and it gets worse with every subsequent baby.  So it only stood to reason, that they told my Aunt and Uncle that Billy was a goner, with little chance to survive.
But just about that time, in 1947, they had started to figure out that if they could replace the baby's blood,  or most of it, with the proper blood type, they could save the baby.  These days, mothers get preventative injections of antibodies, and the problem never happens.
Back then, they were on a mission all over town to find someone with negative blood, that would match.
It just happened to be my father.
Billy's last name was Rooker.  But all through my childhood, I heard the story, that REALLY Billy was 2/3 Cooper, from his Mom, and from getting a whole bunch of blood from his Uncle Mort.
It was a good story.
He WAS a lot like my father, in many ways. 
Billy only made it to 57, so believe it when I say, that along with missing him, I am grateful to be here, to have the chance to love my children, my family, my friends, my Roy, my kitties, my looms, and my life.
Amen.

And happy to be here talking to you all.