Sidewalk Surfing With Me

 Well, it’s finally here. I am 55 (double nickels). I have already received a lot of great birthday wishes, and I want you all to know how much I appreciate them. I guess I sort of begged for them in Wednesday’s Tribune, but that really wasn’t my point. That said, I like getting them even though they make me feel a little embarrassed. It very much takes me back to when I was a kid. It’s the oddest thing: I want people to remember my birthday, but when they do, I wish they hadn’t said anything because I am embarrassed that I care. This will be the first birthday for me without hearing my mom sing me ‘Happy Birthday’, so that’s currently making me a little sad. I'm glad I was able to spend time with my mom last spring.

When I was a kid, my most vivid birthday memory was getting a “Bun Buster” skateboard for my 10th Birthday. My parents gave it to me before school and I immediately went up on the hill behind their house to start practicing. I ended up being okay at skateboarding, but never really excelled at it. I was always afraid of going too fast (inertia is a bitch) and breaking something. Luckily, there weren’t a lot of tricks that one had to perform on his skateboard back in 1964, so I fit in just fine. There was a fine song by Jan and Dean that captured the innocence of the early skateboard movement in CA called ‘Sidewalk Surfing’. We were not the Lords Of Dogtown, just guys in Madras shirts and white Levis.

Joe Walsh and I share a birthday, as well as a flair for creativity, and an inclination to self-destruct. We do both seem to have the self-destruction thing under control, however. We will be hearing from Joe on Friday’s DahlCast. He’ll be calling in from a limo on his way to the airport in Cabo San Lucas. Ah, the life of a rock star. I’m not sure if he was down there vacationing or playing a gig, but that will be one of my hard-hitting questions during our interview segment. Joe has been a good friend over the years, and I am glad that each of us made it out alive. We both have a lot of friends who didn’t. So, really just waking up every November 20th is a bit of an accomplishment.