February 2

It's coming up. My fifty-eighth birthday. I am getting old. No, I don't really care anymore, I went through that trauma back when I was in my forties and realized that no one would buy or give me anything anymore because they thought I was pretty. That is for young women. I don't mind. I'm looking forward to all the benefits of senior life. Like discounts. This year I'm going to have a cake, too. Last year I didn't, I was trying to lose weight. But I've found out that my problem with losing weight isn't overeating, it's under activity. I'm on the computer most of the day and don't get out much. I have a friend who mountain bikes. He can eat anything that he wants to. So this year, for my fifty-eighth year, I'm going to get more active. It's going to be hard. I have a wrecked left knee and flibitis in my right elbow. I have a back which goes out everytime I do something I'm not used to. This is old age. So I have to try to find something interesting to do that I can do. Soccer is a possibility. All you do is run. I won't be good at the start but maybe I can get better. Of course that's not possible in winter. Another thing is, every year I buy myself a birthday gift. I don't want anything, really, but I am going to buy a really big steak. I'm looking forward to it. Winter birthdays are lots of fun. It's a real nice break in the cold days to celebrate anything, I find. Anyway I'm going to have a good time.

The Children's Chocolate Bar Strike

It was 1947. The war was over and costs that had been held down by the war were zooming up. A chocolate bar in Canada was five cents. But cost of sugar etc was up. So the chocolate companies decided to raise the price to eight cents. A boy went down to get a bar and noticed the price. He complained and soon he and some friends were on a picket line outside the shop. The idea caught on. More and more boys and girls showed up to picket the high price of chocolate. Newspapers zeroed in on the children and the children's chocolate strike was born. It was country-wide and looked on with some amusement by the adults. The chocolate companies tried to reason with the kids. Tried to tell them about soaring costs of making the candy. Kids didn't listen. Then, on the eve of the biggest strike that was to hit Canada, a telephone call came it. The children, it said, are being used by the communists to derail the capitalist economy. No one knows who made the call. Overnight parents forbade their children to strike, fearing their sons and daughters were pawns of communist sympathizers. It was over as quick and as sudden as it began. The price of chocolate held at eight cents and now is about two dollars. But oh, those were interesting times.