For Whom The Birds Toil

One of my favorite people - and also one of my favorite baseball fans - celebrates a birthday today.  Gracie was raised a Baltimore Orioles fan.  Her father, Thomas, who imparted his love of the Os to his daughter much the same way Dad saddled me with my irrational, and often unrequited, love of the New York Rangers, raised her well.  Through thick and thin (and there have been years within the last ten to fifteen years where the Os have been wafer-thin), Gracie has passionately supported her baseball team.  

Perhaps it is her stalwart support of a perpetually lost cause such as the Orioles that explains the secret of our friendship two decades further on up the road from where it began.  I long ago learned to not question it.  I simply appreciate it.   I appreciate her.  

Happy Birthday, Gracie!  

-AK