"With Mirth and Laughter Let Old Wrinkles Come."

What a great day this birth day was – Carol made my usual lucky man’s Saturday breakfast for me, then came the nicest present, a small neatly decorated packet with an accompanying birthday envelope with a card that read “Birthdays are good for you – the more you have the longer you live” then a little hug and snog from me to she.  Next I opened the little packet and there it is, a two CD set (and I had thought it something else because it was too thick for a (single) CD – Verdi – IL TROVATORE.  In my younger years I could barely listen to classical music other than Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto and Mussorgsky's Night On Bald Mountain, with Opera a strange screaming by large women and strange looking men and only good for singing insanely profane made-up lyrics about management at the rocket factory.  The opposite side of the coin, Pop music, left me cold also so I listened a lot to jazz, blues, and those singers that even though they hit the pop charts occasionally were generally part of the 70s protest area.  Along about my 40s I developed an abiding interest in Gaelic music and a few more easy listening classical things like Gershwin.  Well life has led me on gradually tutoring me into a semblance of an educated man, peeling away my inherited conservative tribal convictions in favor of having a common interest in the common man that many liberals seem to do so easily.  So my favorite radio station 91.5 is on a lot at my house during the day – an have to slip in an aside here about the old 20/80 rule that applies to everything in the universe I think i.e. you listen to 80% crap looking for the 20% great (I guess this might even apply to Pop music although it seems to me that the 20/80 rule become 2/98 there) and on Saturdays there is an afternoon devoted to Opera.  All this stuff written down to give you my background of eventually in my late 70s finding I am liking Opera more and more and have been talking about it with Carol and She (yes Caps) bought me this great set of a great opera – did I mention that if has Andre Bocelli. Carlo Guelfi, Veronica Villarroel, and others – which we carried out to the car as we set off to Longwood Gardens for the afternoon, and listened to it for the hours drive up (CD 1) and for the hours drive back (CD 2) BUT the best part is that after I had opened the CD package after breakfast and was amazed that she had bought this for me, Carol somehow slipped a neatly folded envelope with only the large open window facing up within which I could see wording to the effect of 2 tickets to the opera at The Grand in Wilmington next spring.  79 years to finally go to my first opera – which same is Verdi – IL TROVATORE  that we listened to in perfect agreement as to the quality of the music for our introduction to opera.   Our journey around the grounds, the pleasant greatness of my new camera and the nice lo-key late afternoon meal at Hanks Place a few miles away just north across the Brandywine seemed a pre-ordained part of this perfect day as did the black walnut cake and vanilla ice cream dessert when we came home.  I have eaten homemade black walnut cake for my birthday for as long as I can remember and Carol’s was superb.  

And now to top it off, some lovely 10 year old Laphroaig Straight From The Cask (at 55.7 Alc/vol) – this is indeed a malt to test your mettle.