Today is July 7th. It is a non-special day for most people. Just an average Tuesday. Hot. Muggy. A day when a lot of working people wish they were still sitting on the back deck with a cold beverage. The 4th is in the rearview mirror. The celebrations are over. The pool floaties are deflated. The smoke from the cheap fireworks has disappeared into thin air.

But the 7th sticks in my mind for a couple of reasons. One is that my dad was born on July 7th.

My AI buddy says that, on average, about 12,147 babies are born in the US every July 7th. So that means that over the last 100 years (Dad would be 103) somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.2 million of us shared the same birthday with him.

In fact, and I have no idea how this statistic came to be, July 7th consistently ranks as the sixth most popular birthday of the year out of all available 365 days. And this one day is the only non-September day to make the list of the top 10 most common days to be born.

The cold Januarys put September on top.

But the other reason that July 7th stands out is because on this day three years ago I met Marion Joy Laster for the first time. Short gal. Full of spunk. Loves to laugh. Big smile. You may have met her.

Although we met at a funeral on this day, it was another month before we talked again and almost five weeks before we officially met for dinner. We both were about scared to death. No idea where this adventure would lead us. And here we are married and doing life together.

According to Marion we have about half a dozen anniversaries to keep up with. Our first meeting. Our first dinner. Our first real date. Our first yard sale trip. Our first fishing trip. The list goes on.

The day we got married? Well, that’s down the list a ways. It took both of us a while to come to grips with the most important anniversary of all, I guess. But we both recognize that tying the knot wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for all the other firsts that came before it.

She said to me this morning, “Ya know, we’ve got our third first anniversary coming up.”

“I know, tomorrow, in fact.”

She has them numbered and will test me to see if I remember which number is what milestone. I have cliff notes tucked away in my wallet to make sure that I can keep up with the official calendar.

In August, the third second anniversary and the third third anniversary is coming up. September holds the spot for the third fourth anniversary and finally we get to October when we got married. I think that’ll be the second fifth anniversary. Good thing I have notes.

I’m just grateful to be along for the journey.

Speaking of journeys, by the end of the week we are boarding a plane with two of my grandkids for Calgary, Canada. Dorothy turns 8 on July 11th, and she is convinced that this trip is all about her birthday. It’s not. It just so happens that our trip coincides with her birthday.

We are actually flying to Calgary to meet up with her mom and dad who are there already, site-seeing the area around Banff National Park. We’ll catch up with them for a few days. They’ll fly home with the kids. And we’ll have a few days on our own to see and hike the sights by ourselves before we head back.

So the next few stories will be from beyond the north border.

Let me just offer up an idea here about Georgia Bred, because the other thing that is happening in July is that by the time I get back from Canada I will hit another anniversary. The very first GB story hit the blogging world in July of 2019. I can’t believe I’ve been doing this for seven years. I really can’t believe that a few of you have been reading since day one, and I am extremely grateful that all of you have been along for the ride.

I’m grateful mostly because I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m especially ungifted when it comes to managing the technical world in which these stories reside. I set up the fledgling site on a July day long ago and have pretty much been riding that wave untouched since I started.

What I have become aware of lately is that there have been some glitches in the system which apparently have changed without me understanding why or what to do about it.

One of those glitches has to do with how easy or how difficult it is to leave a comment or to share a story with friends. Used to be, at least I think it was at one point in time, it was easy. Click a button. Type a comment. And magically, we could communicate. Same with hitting the share button.

Apparently, somewhere along the way the ease of doing those two things got high-jacked. In order to comment or share, you had to sign in, give three sources of identification, the last four of your social, recite the Gettysburg Address, and verify your eligibility fourteen times.

NO MORE!

I had a chat with the site robot this morning. He was very helpful up to a point. He understood my every concern. He directed me to various places within my site settings to check and uncheck boxes. When that failed, he offered to connect me with a human. He literally instructed me to type into the dialogue box, “please connect me to a human,” which I did.

After waiting half an hour for my human to make contact, I gave up.

But I do not give up easily. I went back into my settings and unchecked what I think are a couple of the default parameters that were holding the comments and shares hostage. I think I got it.

So, do me a favor. Help me out with an experiment. The next time you read a story, go all the way to the end until you see the comment box. Click on that and leave me a comment. Let me know if you can get through the wall or if you have to offer up your first born as a sacrifice.

And if you don’t mind ruining somebody else’s day, click on the FB share icon and see if you can send a copy of the story to someone you don’t like very much. It will irritate the stew out of them, and it will help me know if the system is working again.

Anyway, I hope you have a great July. Stop thinking about cooler weather. That’s not doing you any good at all. We’ve got a lot more sweat to make before first frost.

And, if you were born on July 7th, the fireworks we shot at my house the other night were for you.

Especially the one that went sideways and made us scatter.

PS. If you do comment and you don’t mind, include your name for me. Thanks.