{"id":1187,"date":"2007-07-22T02:23:31","date_gmt":"2007-07-22T02:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/07\/on-a-lighter-note.html"},"modified":"2007-07-22T02:23:31","modified_gmt":"2007-07-22T02:23:31","slug":"on-a-lighter-note","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/07\/on-a-lighter-note.html","title":{"rendered":"On a lighter note"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1198\/866728547_f878d10a27.jpg\" width=\"300\" border=\"0\" \/>&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>My birthday was this past week, with no big page-turning feeling accompanying it, though. The reason is idiocyncratic. I was born in 1960, a year which ends in &quot;0,&quot; which makes it easy to remember how old I am. Because the last digit of my age matches the last digit of the year. In case I forget. Because I&#8217;m not a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Brights_movement\">Bright, obviously.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>But the thing is, because of that, I start thinking of myself as that age on January 1. So, if you&#8217;d asked me three months ago how old I was, I would have immediately said, &quot;47. No, wait. 46.&quot;&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>That being said, it&#8217;s still very hard for me think of myself, on an existensial level, as being past 45. Having two little ones does that to you, which is a blessing, even as it lets you live in fantasy land for just a bit longer.<\/p>\n<p>But my age must be starting to show. Michael&#8217;s gotten the &quot;What a nice grandchild you have&quot; a couple of times, mostly when he&#8217;s had his heavily grey beard. I got it for the first time a couple of weeks ago, when we were in a Publix in Florida &#8211; the checker asked, &quot;Are these your grandchildren?&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Ask Michael what my internal, unspoken response was. He knows. No, scratch that &#8211; don&#8217;t ask.<\/p>\n<p>Well, anyway, the context of this next anecdote is that I&#8217;ve forever gotten the unbelieving stares when people learn that I have sons in their 20&#8217;s. &quot;Wow, you must have started young&quot; is the standard issue statement.<\/p>\n<p>Today I was at the playground with the little boys. A Hispanic man was pushing his son on a swing beside us. I only mention that he was Hispanic because it sort of explains why, as he was texting on his cell phone, he looked up and asked me how to spell &quot;crazy.&quot; <\/p>\n<p>And then one of my children said, &quot;Mommy,&quot; and he looked up again. &quot;Wow,&quot; he said, &quot;Are they yours?&quot; Yeah, I said. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;You must have started late, huh?&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Like I said.<\/p>\n<p>C-R-A-Z-Y.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; My birthday was this past week, with no big page-turning feeling accompanying it, though. The reason is idiocyncratic. I was born in 1960, a year which ends in &quot;0,&quot; which makes it easy to remember how old I am. Because the last digit of my age matches the last digit of the year. In&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>On a lighter note - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/07\/on-a-lighter-note.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On a lighter note - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&nbsp; My birthday was this past week, with no big page-turning feeling accompanying it, though. The reason is idiocyncratic. I was born in 1960, a year which ends in &quot;0,&quot; which makes it easy to remember how old I am. Because the last digit of my age matches the last digit of the year. In&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/07\/on-a-lighter-note.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-07-22T02:23:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1198\/866728547_f878d10a27.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"On a lighter note - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/07\/on-a-lighter-note.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"On a lighter note - Via Media","og_description":"&nbsp; My birthday was this past week, with no big page-turning feeling accompanying it, though. The reason is idiocyncratic. I was born in 1960, a year which ends in &quot;0,&quot; which makes it easy to remember how old I am. Because the last digit of my age matches the last digit of the year. In&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/07\/on-a-lighter-note.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2007-07-22T02:23:31+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1198\/866728547_f878d10a27.jpg"}],"author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/07\/on-a-lighter-note.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/07\/on-a-lighter-note.html","name":"On a lighter note - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/07\/on-a-lighter-note.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/07\/on-a-lighter-note.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1198\/866728547_f878d10a27.jpg","datePublished":"2007-07-22T02:23:31+00:00","dateModified":"2007-07-22T02:23:31+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/07\/on-a-lighter-note.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/07\/on-a-lighter-note.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/07\/on-a-lighter-note.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1198\/866728547_f878d10a27.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1198\/866728547_f878d10a27.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/07\/on-a-lighter-note.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"On a lighter note"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}