Birthday Girl

My grandmother, Gramma Bitter, had a birthday Saturday. And 82 others before that one. She and I share the winter birthday party conundrum (i.e. the weather is terrible and nobody can make it). She is a smart lady though, so she doesn't let any weather stop her. Nope, sometimes she gathers her friends and family and celebrates 6 months earlier (or later I suppose).

Here is a condensed time line of the some of the things that have happened during her lifetime. And this doesn't even include what happened to her, with her, close to her - like marriage, children, grandchildren, teaching, crafting, learning how to swim, vacations, adventures, choir, community band, painting, NY, FL, NC...

1929 - Great Depression begins, Museum of Modern Art opens, 1st class stamp $0.02
1938 - Invention of the Ball Point Pen and First Xerox copy
1939 - World War 2 begins
1940 - First McDonald's opens
1947 - Invention of the Microwave oven, Chuck Yeager breaks sound barrier
1949 - Debut of cable television
1950 - Charles Shulz starts Peanuts, first class stamp $0.03
1957 - Sputnik launched
1958 - First class stamp up to $0.04, Elvis joins the Army
1959 - Alaska and Hawaii join the United States
1960 - Listening to Patsy Kline & John Coltrane, Reading To Kill a Mockingbird
1964 - US Surgeon General affirms cigarette smoking causes cancer
1967 - PBS is created
1969 - First walk on the moon
1970 - Floppy disk introduced
1974 - Nixon resigns from presidency
1975 - Saturday Night Live premieres
1977 - Star Wars hits theatres, Elvis dies, first woman priest ordained
1979 - Three Mile Island meltdown scare, First class stamp up to $0.15
1981 - MTV goes on air
1986 - Oprah! airs
1988 - CD's out sell vinyl records
1989 - First class stamp $0.25
1990 - Cold War ends, Persian Gulf War begins
1992 - World Wide Web available to the public
1996 - Another cloning milestone; Dolly the Sheep
1999 - First class stamp $0.33, Y2K scare
2001 - Terrorists attack United States
2004 - Gay marriage legalized in Massachusetts, Martha Stewart goes to prison
2006 - Pluto is demoted from "planet" to "dwarf planet"
2009 - First class stamp $0.44
2010 - BP Oil Spill

Happy Birthday, Grandma!