Brooke,
I must sent you a birthday greeting, as your mother informs me you are riding your Special Train for your Inauguration into your 30th year.
The 30th can be historic, a jumping off point for growth, triumph, conquest, spanning continents, hunting buffalo, harvesting grain, mining gold.
I remember my own. It was 1871 -- and amidst the confused triumph of a great war ended there was a new century of hopeful unity ahead, grain to be planted, a racially liberated South to be reconstructed, a West to be settled as the Iron Horse spanned the continent and belching coal replaced the glittering clippers on the world's trade ways. Just years before the first trans Atlantic undersea cable ushered in a new age of Globalization.
There was even talk the US might take colonies abroad as it grew its gunboats and turned its attentions outwards.
Still, back then, few shared my concerns that a newly aggressive America might collide with a newly aggressive Japan over Hawaii and the Philippines in the 1890's and lead to global war 70 years in the future.
Your time is more predictable, no doubt with less change ahead.
As a gentleman from the old school I can only hope it will not be boring.
Happy Birthday
Fred
