Happy Birthday Grandad

Today, August 15th, is my dad's birthday. It's a milestone! Not because he's 50, or 60 or even 70(!), but because he's a huge Beatles fan and today he turns 64 :) Do you know that song? (Doesn't everybody know that song?)

I have been thinking tonight of my dad listening to this record in 1966 when he was 18. He has many many stories of being 18, with Darryl, and others, and all their antics running around London. And he talks a lot about how he was a teenager at the best time to be a teenager. He was there on the brink of change for the music world - a change that the Beatles themselves created. Did you know he was in a band himself?

I know my dad well enough to know that what he loves about this song (When I'm 64) is it's simple sentiment about simple love. (Actually that's what he loves about all Beatles lyrics - he doesn't believe in over-complicating life). In this love song, the Beatles sing "I could be handy, mending a fuse when your lights have gone, You can knit a sweater by the fireside, Sunday mornings go for a ride". In those words, they are imagining their love story fifty years into the future, and isn't it just a lovely simple picture? And that is my dad - he is always content with the most simple of happinesses in life.

But there's another thing I want to say that is really the point of this post. And that is that I can picture my 18 year old dad listening to this song in 1966 and never being able to imagine actually getting to that fateful day of turning 64! Can any of us imagine what our life might look like at 64 when we are 18? I doubt it. So, tonight, dad, I hope you hear this song somewhere and smile. And know that, YES, we will still love you, we will still feed you, now you're 64! Happy Birthday!