My Second Birthday

I’d be willing to bet that you’ve never met anyone with two birthdays.  Well… TADA!  Now you have.  I have the distinguished honor of having not one, but two birthdays each year.  One on November 16th, 19…blah, blah, blah, and the other, today—December 17th. 

How, you may ask, could I possibly have two birthdays?  Today is the day I was adopted… forty years ago, today, as a matter of fact.  Now, let’s see… what was going on in the world and in the good old USA forty years ago today?  Well, the Vietnam War was raging out of control with no end in sight.  So much so that my mom thought I might actually grow up and end up being drafted into the war.  But the other thing that was going on at that same time was… the Women’s Lib Movement. 

Now, the only reason I even bring this up is because my mom and I were bordering on celebrity status, due to the fact that she adopted me as a single parent.  And in 1970, that simply did not happen.  We were hounded by the press and media for interviews, including the New York Times and even the Today Show.  Actually, my mom was the one being hounded, I just sat there trying to be a cute little toddler.  She finally had to take the phone off the hook so we could have some semblance of a Christmas together.  

There you have it… the story (in a nutshell) of how I came to have two birthdays.  I consider myself among a very elite group of people.  So, if you ever run across someone whom you find has been adopted, wish them a second happy birthday!