Happy Birthday, Chuck

My son Chuck turns 28 today... at 10:21 this evening, to be exact... and it does not seem possible that it has been twenty-eight years since the night in the delivery room that he came into the world. Of course, it seems equally impossible that he's out of high school ten years, out of Princeton for six and married for two and a half!

One of our long-held family traditions is the birthday dinner; the celebrant gets to pick whatever foods he or she wants. Chuck opted for steak and shrimp on the barbecue, pasta with pesto, salad, and chocolate beet cake for dessert, which we all enjoyed yesterday after a sunny afternoon by the pool.

Among the presents Chuck received was a device that allows him to play older-generation Nintendo games on his current game system. That reminded us all of how, as a youngster, he saved up his money to buy that first Nintendo and what he did until he had enough. Using some cardboard, plastic, markers and crayons, and -- most important -- his imagination, he made himself a faux video game system and called it "Pretendo." He had so much fun with it that some of his friends wanted one too!

Happy Birthday, Chuck! And many, many more!