It’s My Birthday (Part 1)

It’s my birthday!  Another trip around the sun completed successfully!

And what a great birthday it was.  Every one here at Koinonia stopped me and told me “Happy Birthday”…I got quite a few emails and some cards from folks.

Everyone sang Happy Birthday to me at lunch and while I tried to pretend to be embarrassed, secretly is was kinda nice to have it happen.

Big difference from last year.

Last year on my birthday I was on the bike trip.  I spent my birthday on the side of a mountain in north Georgia…alone.  It was kind of a relaxing day.  Slept late and when I finally poked my head out of the tent it was snowing.  Not snowing hard, but that soft gentle snow that just seems to absorb all the sounds around you…know what I mean?

I built a little fire to heat some coffee and sat there drinking a cup and smoking a cigarette or two and just watching.  Watching the snow fall, watching the gray sky, listening to the silence.

Early afternoon I rode my bike ten miles to the closest town and had a hamburger.  Took my time eating it and was busy watching everyone else as I ate.  People coming…going…rushing around.  I had the blessings to leisurely eat my burger in peace before heading back out to the tent.

It had stopped snowing by the time I got back to the tent and the moon had come out.  It was a full, big, white, bright moon.    And with the light reflecting off of all that fresh snow, well, almost seemed like daylight.

The perfect birthday…almost.  I’m not an “alone” type guy.  Oh I like my times of peace and quiet, but I prefer to be around people… activity… noise…things happening.

That’s what made this birthday special.

After work, I was invited to a friend’s house for my birthday dinner.  Guess she didn’t think I’d be good company by myself, so she invited Craig…another friend.  So the three of us sat around and ate my chosen birthday meal…hamburgers, carrots and baked potatoes and laughed…and chatted…and gossiped…and laughed some more.

After dinner, we settled in to watch a movie.  Can’t remember what the movie was exactly, my mind was elsewhere.  I kept thinking about how much better it was to be in a warm house on a cold December night with a pretty lady and a friend.

*Yah, I know this is a couple days late.  But it took a few days of thinking about how great this birthday was for it to sink in.

The Wall, McDonalds and Groupies

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Been thinking alot lately about the past year.  It was a year ago October 31st that I left Washington D.C. on the last leg of my trip.

It was a good trip.  Made alot of friends (you can read about some of them at www.couchsurfing.com/people/janelson ), saw alot of things, met a ton of folks, spoke at alot of churches, schools and civic groups and raised some money for homeless vets.

The picture here was taken by Jennifer Kaleba, VP of Rails to Trails in Washington D.C.  She got up early to meet me at “The Wall” to take the picture AND she brought me a cup of coffee. 

Someone in D.C. saw the picture and it’s landed in the hands of the postal folks.  It’s my understanding that they are issuing a stamp based on the picture and I’ve had some folks up in the northeast tell me they’ve already seen it.  The proceeds from the sale of the stamp goes to help support the National Homeless Coalition for Homeless Veterans.

I’ve seen the picture show up in a couple things besides the post office.  It was used in a November 07 issue of Newsweek or Time or one of those weekly magazines.  It accompanied an article about the 25th Anniversary of The Wall.

Several American Legion posts and VFW posts have used it as a fundraiser, which is kinda cool.  And I walked into a diner in Missouri and saw it taped to the wall next to the cash register.  Seems like the owner of the diner is a veteran and he kinda liked it.

One of the neatest things about the picture happened this spring in Illinois.  I spoke at an American Legion post while passing through.  The next morning after taking the tent down and loading the bike, I stopped at a McDonald’s for a biscuit and a cup of coffee.  A couple tables over, I noticed that two women kept looking at me and then at something that was laying on the table infront of them.  Well, seems like they had seen a promo spot on TV a few nights before I spoke and the TV station used the picture from The Wall in their spot.  The ladies liked the picture and had just bought a copy online before heading to McDonald’s.  We chatted a few minutes and then it was time for me to hit the road…but there for a few moments, I had two groupies.

Now I’m at Koinonia in Georgia…I believe I’m home.  If they’ll let me, I think I could see spending the rest of my life here at “the farm”.  Be on the lookout sometime over the next several days for an update and some information on how you can help support Koinonia!