Henry Winkler, yeah, 'The Fonz,' turns 73 today.
Rocker Grace Slick is 72.
Here's some headline news: Philly girl and broadcast journalism icon Andrea Mitchell is 72.
This also happens to be the day that Orson Welles convinced much of the nation that aliens were invading in his "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast.
It's Halloween Eve.
Mischief night, as we used to refer to it.
And yes, I'm guilty of just about every nasty thing you've ever complained about kids doing on this night. Hey, it was a small town. There wasn't a lot to do. So we usually managed to get into trouble.
None of that is on my mind this Oct. 30.
For me, for the last 35 years, this day has been special for another reason.
It's my wife's birthday.
Unless you have done it, experienced it, lived through all those deadlines, the ups and downs of a life that gets lived 15 minutes at a time, I'm not sure I can adequately explain what it is like to be married to a newspaper editor.
As my wife often says, she is married to me; I'm married to my job.
She's right.
That's doesn't make it "right," of course. I'm the first to admit that.
The journalism business is littered with relationships that didn't work out.
I can't count the number of lives I've seen end up on the rocky shores of a nasty breakup.
And that was when we merely adhered to what today seems like an incredibly quaint concept, a single daily print deadline.
Looking back, that life seems tranquil compared to the 24-hour news cycle we now feed - or at least attempt to feed - every day.
I will never be able to repay her - or my kids - for the number of times this job came first.
It is my greatest fault.
But she's the one who has had to live with it.
The nights alone.
The weekends spent with others.
The dinners interrupted.
The waiting for a life that could be considered even remotely 'normal.'
We're not there yet.
But, for some reason, she still is still here.
Today I can honestly proclaim this is Headline News.
Happy Birthday to the best other half a newspaper editor could ever imagine.
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