There was a line that my father used to quote to me from a book that he had read in high school.

“He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.”

It was a novel called ‘Scaramouche’ and it was centred on the French Revolution and is so old that it doesn’t even list its publication date in, you know, the front of the book. But I guess that wasn’t the way of pre-Depression publishing practices. And maybe that’s a good way to hide its age. Good idea; from now on when people ask me how old I am I’m going to say I forget. I lost my birth certificate and..I’ve forgot. But no matter how old it is I still love that opening line. It comforts me. Maybe because I do like to laugh and often, yes, too often, the world does seem, at times, to becoming increasingly unhinged.

But for you faithful and diehard readers I will reveal that I was born on April 28, 1956. Yeah, aTaurus. The bull.

I like to think of myself as strong as a bull. Certainly I work at it enough. A lot of effort, maybe not the results. I like the expression I once heard, “Strong like bull. Smart like streetcar.” It makes me chuckle, perhaps ruefully. Maybe it’s too close for comfort.

That birthday puts me smack dab in the middle of the dwindling, but still-here generation known as the Baby Boomers. I capitalized it for my own sense of self-importance.

As best as I can, I have tried to keep this blog from becoming just another political rant, and have tried to centre it on personal stories and experiences, with a light touch. All the blogging-sphere needs is another aging boomer, shaking his fist, yelling at clouds and starting every second sentence with the words, “In my day…”

Incidentally, that’s exactly what the front of a birthday card says that I received from one of my kids.

But to try and catch up with the times I might start introducing myself as “Hi. My name is David Perras and I’m gluten-free.” You know, just to let people know I’m not immune to the modern ailments. Even some of the other old-timers are catching on and getting with the program. I was talking with a hockey friend down at Lansdowne Park yesterday, a guy just a couple of years younger than I am, and he mentioned that he was a ‘celiac’. I nodded my head sagely while I started rifling through the file cards in my brain. Celiac ? I knew that didn’t mean high blood-pressure or an irregular heartbeat,and I knew he had never been charged with wife-beating, but damn if I could remember just exactly what celiac meant.

“Oh”, I said, and asked if he had seen the last RedBlacks’ game. I could remember he was a season-ticket holder.

But I have my own ailments to keep track of. Not only have I had two lens replacements which enable me not to wear the contacts I have sported since I was seventeen years old. a pacemaker because my heart’s ‘electrical system’ wasn’t working properly, and two knee replacements in the past two-and-one-half years. The way I figure it, and if modern surgery keeps advancing, I won’t have an original part left by the year 2035. If a rebuilt Steve Austin was the original “Six Million Dollar Man”, I will be able to label myself, maybe with a price tag of $39.99.

Hopefully you’ll still be reading my blogs by then.