Birthday Trivia on a Laid-Back Sunday

As you know, my Posts typically have insightful and relatively poignant messages. Today, however, I’m thinking and Posting outside the box.

My day began with a delightful breakfast with my brother and sister-in-law, George and Debbie, and dear friends, Doug and Susan, at a beach-side restaurant. Then we got on our Harleys and drove over the Skyway Bridge to a great little biker bar, Peggy’s Corral, just north of Sarasota. The wonderful live music and a couple of hundred bikers solving the world’s problems counterbalanced the heat and humidity. Most importantly, it was fun.

On my way home I stopped at Barnes and Noble and with a gift card purchased a new book – Michael Connelly’s latest novel, The Overlook (I love his adorable old sleuth, Harry Bosch). After enjoying phone calls from friends, my three children and three grandchildren and before heading out to the porch to listen to the dolphins blowing by and settling in to see what’s new with Harry (with the Braves/Cubs game on the tube of course), I thought I’d share seventeen silly and unnecessary pieces of Birthday Trivia with you:

1. It is customary in many cultures to celebrate the anniversary of one’s birthday, for example by having a birthday party with family and/or friends.

2. Today is or would have been the birthdays of some well-known people: Saul Bellow, novelist (1915), Judy Garland, actress (1922), and Tara Lipinski, figure skater (1982).

3. It is thought that the large-scale celebration of birthdays in Europe began with the cult of Mithras, which originated in Persia but was spread by soldiers throughout the Roman Empire.

4. Birthday celebrations were rare during the Middle Ages but saw a resurgence with the advent of the Reformation. During this period, they were seen as a good way to transfer customs from the saint’s days to other dates not linked to the newly repudiated veneration of saints.

5. Today, the celebration of birthdays is not universal in the West; in addition to those people preferring name day celebrations, Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate either, considering their origins to be pagan festivals along with Christmas and Easter.

6. Some adults loathe celebrating it as it reminds them that they are getting progressively older.

7. In most English-speaking countries it is traditional to sing the song Happy Birthday to You to the honored person celebrating his birthday. The Happy Birthday Song melody is thought to be the most frequently sung melody in the world.

8. The birthday cake is traditionally highly decorated, and typically covered with lit candles when presented; the number of candles often equals the age of the person. Birthday cakes have been a tradition dating back as far as the Middle Ages when the English would conceal symbolic items such as gold coins, rings and thimbles inside their cakes. Each item was associated with a prediction. For example, a person finding a gold coin in a birthday cake would supposedly become wealthy where a person discovering a thimble would never marry (Ouch!).

9. Notable birthdays tend to include when the most significant digit changes, for example one's 1st, 10th, 15th, 30th, 50th, or 100th birthdays, as well as significant years such as the 18th (UK and US legal adult age), and 21st (US alcoholic beverage drinking age).

10. In most legal systems, one becomes a legal adult on a particular birthday, and at different ages gain different rights and responsibilities — voting, certain drug use (for example, alcohol, purchasing tobacco), eligibility for military draft or voluntary enlistment, purchasing lottery tickets, etc.

11. Most cultures have one or more coming of age birthdays. For example, Jewish boys have a bar mitzvah on or around their 13th birthday. Jewish girls observe a bat mitzvah on or around their 12th birthday, or sometimes on or around their 13th birthday in Reform and Conservative Judaism.

13. In some Christian traditions, generally Catholic and Anglican, Confirmation is the ritual by which a young person becomes an official member of the Church. This sometimes includes the bestowal of a “Confirmation name,” generally the name of a saint, which is often worn as a second middle name.

14. In Latin America the quinceañera celebration traditionally marks a girl’s 15th birthday.

15. Some girls and a few boys in the United States have “sweet sixteen” birthday parties.

16. The most common birthday in the USA is October 5, whereas the least common birthday is May 22.

17. All racehorses traditionally celebrate their birthday on (that is, calculate their age in years from) 1 August in the Southern Hemisphere, and on 1 January in the Northern Hemisphere. (I can’t believe Curlin didn’t win the Preakness yesterday!)

No, I did not put my bike down and hit my head, nor did I have too many beers at Peggy’s. Trust me, my next Post will return to what is my norm – today I just decided to give myself permission to be a little silly. Today’s my birthday.

Bill