Forty-Thirty

Keith Landry

Wrote this and performed it for my mom’s 70th birthday party. Our family is a bit crazy.

FORTY-THIRTY

Well, your birthday rolled around again
The way all birthdays do
And this year it’s a big one
Once again you’re sixty-two
I’m sorry all I have
Is just this simple set of chords
I have to concentrate on
Seven decades worth of words

Brought into the world in June of 1943
Raised in the age of radio
And black and white T.V.
No cell phones or iPods, DVD’s, no cable too
Right now my girls are wond’rin
What the hell did you all do?

Tops in your class in high school
You’d head out to the beach
When you needed summer fun
Spent some years in the convent
We’re all just glad you didn’t stay a nun

Bailing on the sisterhood
Not a day too soon
Married ‘round the time
We started landing on the moon
So off you flew together
To be married in Japan
I’ll change the tempo now to pick on Dad
Because we can

On good days, he’s just a little bit crazy
Thank God each day is the best day of his life
Though the secret might be maybe
Like me he’s married to a superhero wife

Mom, you raised three children
Though at times, it must’ve felt like more
But I know why, look right beside you
Let’s face it, you were really raising four

As for me, I was an angel
Always eager to lend a helping hand
I’m sure loved each time I told you
“But Mom, you just don’t understand!”

Dumping peanut bags on Karen
Saved by the Bell
With Kristen every night
You swore you’d kill our Disney trip
If we didn’t get a grip
Since that threat we never fight

There never was a punishment
For which we weren’t warned
You only hit me once
When I wished Karen wasn’t born
You survived three kids
All clinically insane
The fact that you still like us
Makes me wonder ‘bout your brain

So now you get to spoil
My three crazy little girls
And hang out by the lake
Or hop a plane to see the world
Life may not have turned out
Looking quite the way you planned
All joking set aside
It sure looks good from where I stand.

Well 70’s a word I’m told
That some might consider dirt
But so you don’t feel like you’re old
We’ll call you forty-thirty