Selamat Hari Jadi, Abang

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Once upon a time (in 1969 to be precise), before many of you were born, my older brother was on his way between Syracuse (the one in New York, not the the Greek one on Sicily) and Kuala Lumpur (where my family was living at the time). Mapquest hadn't been invented yet, so he took a wrong turn and ended up in Nepal for a spell. While he was there, he purchased little trinkets for his brothers and sisters (of whom I was one, and still am!) and a little something for himself (Little prayer flags? A Sherpa's cloak? I don't-know-what little pastries? I'm not going to speculate that it was ganja -- I don't even know what ganja is -- or how to spell it -- or what it does -- or anything like that).

For me, he purchased a thin, lightweight little brass calendar. It was made of brass because it had a little wheel with a tiny handle welded onto the front constructed with little cut-outs or windows that the user could turn to advance the names of the months, which were actually hand-painted on the stationary part of the calendar that attached to the back of the wheel. When the wheel moved to a new month, the correct date appeared in the window. And it had a thin little pole in the back that acted as a stand so that the calendar could rest on top of a flat horizontal surface, such as a desk (hence the name: "brass desk calendar which rests upon a flat horizontal surface, such as a desk").

But this was no ordinary calendar. For not only could the user advance the names of the months by turning the wheel, but also the years, because the enumeration of the years -- 40 of them -- were also painted on the stationary part behind the wheel. In this way, the user could have a calendar that lasted from the beginning of 1969 to the end of 2009 in the Gregorian System. And those Nepalese were so ingenious that they calculated the placement of the hand-painted months and years and the alignment of the windows such that the calendar was always accurate -- even in leap years. (Certain months were painted in red for leap years. Can you guess which ones?)

As a lad of 10 (which was my approximate age upon receipt of the calendar), I couldn't conceive of a swath of time as vast as 40 years. Mostly, my concept of time was measured by the distance between meals (and come to think of it, still is). I certainly couldn't believe that anything I would ever own could ever have a use for a span that was four times my then age. The farthest into the future I could see at that time was almost unimaginable age of 20, when I would be a world-famous bell bottom-adorned hippie. Moreover, I couldn't fathom being able to hold on to something for 40 years, let alone 1.

And yet, I held on to it -- through Woodstock and the first Moon landing, the White Album, Watergate, the end of the War in Vietnam, Jaws, the U.S. Bicentennial, the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, my ever-so-brief stint as a world-famous hippie, the Iranian Revolution, E.T., the fast-paced but kinda fun invasion of Grenada, marriage, two children, enough nieces and nephews to form a political party, or at the very least -- a minyan, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the liberation and election of Nelson Mandela, the fall and rise of Times Square, Operation Desert Storm, Schindler's List, the Y2K hoax, the Euro, (my being recognized as the 1 millionth visitor to any number of websites -- amazing!), the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Operation Enduring Freedom, Riverdance, the improbable Red Sox World Series victories, the supplanting of insta-messaging by texting, the elimination of the possessive apostrophe from most American forms of written English, Aung San Suu Kyi's Nobel peace prize and house arrest, the Sopranos, the Wire, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Mad Men, Rocky VI, Star Wars XVI, same-sex marriage, same-sex divorce, the death of Julia Child, a sighting of J.D. Salinger, the retirement of Castro, the appointment of Castro, the election of Barack Obama, the demise of The Guiding Light, Leonard Cohen's next-to-last World Tour concert (sort of), the elevation of China to the position of World's largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, the Iranian Revolution, and the revision of the Facebook privacy policy.

In just a short while, the calendar will be retired as 2009 comes to a close. And so, Dear Brother, I will hazard a guess that that stash of Nepalese Ganja you purchased 40 long years ago has gotten mighty slim. It's time for you to replenish it by taking another trip to Nepal (not on Eastern or TWA or BOAC or Pan Am, mind you -- for, though the calendar and we are still here, they are not).

And while you're there, would you be so kind as to pick me up another brass desk calendar? One good for another 40 or 50 years or so should do the trick.

Thanks. And Happy Birthday.

P.S. What's for dinner?