Jimmy's 50th birthday

What can I say? I respect no one more on this planet than Jim. And fifty isn't that old really. Jim's only eight in dog years, three in cat years, and two hours old in gerbil years.

And he'd better be in his fifties for twenty or thirty years because when he turns sixty I'm outta here. I will just barely be able to withstand my eight other nieces and nephews turning fifty after Jim in the years to come: "Gail's turning fifty." "whom?" "Gail" "Gail Whom?" "Gail Douvillm" "could you excuse me for a moment?" "certainly, where are you going?" "I'm going to bike to New South Wales, Australia and back, don't wait up".

"Everything's relative, Uncle Don" "I know, Jim's relatively old which means I'm relatively ancient, and there is no relatively about it, one is either ancient or one is not". "Should we not celebrate Jim's 50th birthday Uncle Don, he's alive and doing amazingly well, health-wise". "he hides his pain well and on April 3rd his pancreas will give out along with a few other internal organs" "how can you tell?" "because it almost happened to me" "what prevented it?" "pure, unadulterated luck".

"Uncle Don, as Jimmy looks back on his first fifty years what should he be proud of?" "surviving". "surviving?" "no further words need be spoke". "what does jim have to look forward to in his next fifty years, uncle don?" "really good times I hope, I think for all of us it has been somewhat of a dark period losing Marlene and now maybe Roy, of course overlayed by the ups and downs of getting on with life and enjoying family and friends and work, but for Jim it's been particularly tough with the fire and having to live at either Brenda's moms and a little while at a hotel for so long, it must have been a nightmare" "he survived that pretty good didn't he uncle don?" "he did, and now Roy"

"uncle don?" "yes" "take a deep breath and don't worry about family anymore, they will survive without you, what's with you anyway, get a life". "but..." "they know you love them by now" "..but" "bye"