Happy Pandemic Birthday to Me

Candles at my age are a fire hazard. Photo courtesy of Pixabay.

My husband gave me the bad news at midnight last night. 😂 I’m now a year older. We always joke about him being older, but it’s only by a few moths. This morning I was thinking that both our mothers’ pregnancies would have overlapped by a few months. He the oldest in his family and me the youngest. My mother wanted six children, but the doctor told her I should be the last and she listened having a tubal ligation after I was born.

I thought I would take a look back and just see what was happening the year I was born. From Wikipedia:

• 1954 – The Tournament of Roses Parade becomes the first event nationally televised in color
• 1954 – Detonation of “Bravo”, a 15 megaton Hydrogen bomb on Bikini Atoll. 1,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki weapons, it vapourised three islands, displaced the islanders and caused long lasting contamination.
• 1954 – Joseph McCarthy discredited in Army-McCarthy hearings
• 1954 – Censure or formal disapproval on Senator Joseph McCarthy after the Army-McCarthy hearings. He died three years later in 1957.
• 1954 – President Eisenhower proposes the Domino Theory: If South Vietnam fell to communism, so too would all nations of Southeast Asia, and eventually worldwide.
• 1954 – First Indochina War ends after the U.S. kept sending aid to the French. France was defeated by Ho Chi Minh and his army at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.
• 1954 – The CIA overthrows Guatemala’s president Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán (Operation PBSUCCESS)
• 1954 – Saint Lawrence Seaway ACTH, permitting the construction of the system of locks, canals and channels that permits ocean-going vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the North American Great Lakes, is approved
• 1954 – Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark decision of the Supreme Court, declares state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students and denying black children equal educational opportunities unconstitutional
• 1954 – The U.S. becomes a member of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (or SEATO) alliance
• 1954 – Geneva Conference. U.S. rejects the French decision to recognize Communist control of North Vietnam. U.S. increases aid to South Vietnam.
• 1954 – The People’s Republic of China lays siege on Quemoy and Matsu Islands; Eisenhower sends in Navy to demonstrate an invasion of Taiwan would not be permitted
• 1954 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at an all-time high of 382.74, the first time the Dow has surpassed its peak level reached just before the Wall Street Crash of 1929
• 1954 – NBC airs The Tonight Show, the first late-night talk show, originally hosted by Steve Allen
• 1954 – The Democrats retake both houses of Congress in the Midterms. Will keep the Senate until 1981 and the House until 1994.

Here’s a screen shot of a North Carolina newspaper on the day I was born. Not where I lived then or now, but interesting just the same. Of course, perusing the papers also reminded me of the state of civil rights at the time – and in some places today, we seemed to have regressed. From Chronicling America:

I just received a video call from my daughter’s family as they sang happy birthday to me. It was so sweet. My almost three year old granddaughter and I have learned to “play” virtually, so it was quite a lively call.

Hubby cooked and cleaned the kitchen all day on Mother’s Day. We have a few of his fancy high-end pancakes left over that we will warm up for breakfast. No big plans here, so just so grateful for the blessing of another year.

Advertisement