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Show By Janet Wallis VJN What are birthdays for? "Birthdays are for growing older." So said Robert, age six. He's an authority of birthdays. Why can't birthdays be for presents and candy, for cake and ice cream, for parties and families and fun? Why does this growing older bit have to surface and spoil the only day of the year which is exclusively mine? And yours, too? Even birthday number one has its overtones. "Hasn't she started to walk yet?" "I can't wait 'till she talks." "Soon she can pick up her own toys." And all the while the .birthday girl smiles a bemused, bewildered toothless smile and mashes cake on her bald head. Remember that eighth or was it ninth birthday party. The one anticipated for three long weeks. And when it finally arrived, ar-rived, amid fifteen party hats, noise makers, decorated cake and "Pin the tail on the donkey" the guest of honor burst into tears and hid in the closet. Cheer up, all birthdays aren't that bad. Number sixteen is a blast. Afterall teetering on adulthood is great for the adrenaline. Drivers licenses! Dates! A job! At that birthday bash it's Mother who burst into tears and hides in the closet. Her baby is growing older. But how about that first birthday away from home? It should be a colossal event, heralded with freedom flyers', skyrockets and ERA speeches. Instead it's just the opposite. Did someone forget to mention growing older hurts? Logically at thirty the birthday bit should be under control. But on "her day" even the most mature, three, as she stirs together h thday cake, wishes fh 'v again, safe and secure in arms. But thirty is easy when co,.. forty. Just ask anyone made the grade. All women who, on their fnr thday, still wear a size Uvt should buy themselves acorn wardrobe. They deserve it. However, those who don't l even more special treatment' a two week vacation to the r Alone I hear that's as good a? After forty, fifty couldn't be And it isn't. At least one out of af' who recently became halke". will tell you that fifty isn't ask intolerable. But turn sixty and you have it-By it-By that time, a gall bladderoper more exciting than a birthday lot more fun to talk about, too. ' At seventy even Aunt Sephnt mits it's nice to be around i0f another birthday. It's finally alln-eat alln-eat cake and ice cream andrcr with f amily and friends who iift-because iift-because they think you are a liife Each birthday thereafter is a Ph bonus. ' '' Growing older isn't all bad, o get used to it. Afterall, as Robert says, that's-, birthdays are for. |