hAPPY bIRTHDAY bARRY!

Happy 50th birthday to my friend Barry Herndon today. It’s just a number of course, but as many of my other friends who’ve just crossed the half century line are starting to figger out, it is about at this point that you stop giving a DAMN! You start farting in front of the wife and kids. You don’t wash your car or clean the inside out, mostly cuz you stop giving a DAMN! You find yourself in the grocery store in cut-off, cockafloppin’ pajama bottoms with left-over laundromat quarters buying cheap wine on a Sunday afternoon cuz you just don’t give a DAMN! You walk out of the house never looking in the mirror at your hair that’s going in 19 different directions and your tag is up in the back of your torn up t-shirt cuz you don’t give a DAMN! The grass is knee deep in the front yard….so? You say inappropriate things in front of your kid’s friends, who cares? You will love and care about your family and friends as much as ever but everything else can go to hell!
It’s a special time in your life, Barry. Embrace it. Now you have a built in excuse for everything stupid you might do, and when people look at you sideways for something embarrassing or offensive, all you got to do is shrug and say “I’m 50 years old! I…DON’T…GIVE…A…DAMN!”