I spent some time today trying to remember my fifteenth birthday. The birthdays that bookend that one are crystal clear. When I turned fourteen in 1987 I got a motorcycle, and when I turned sixteen in 1989 I got my first car, but that fifteenth birthday remains fuzzy. 1988 was either the year I got my first “real” skateboard (a Fred Smith III model from Alva) or my second Commodore 1541 disk drive. Both cost roughly the same in 1988, so it could have been either one. I guess what sticks out the most about my fifteenth birthday is that, thirty years later, it doesn’t really stick out.

Mason’s fifteenth birthday celebration spanned three days. Saturday, he had two friends spend the night. Sunday, he invited a dozen of his friends to Incredible Pizza for dinner and games. Monday, on his actual birthday, we went out to dinner with our families.

Mason, like me, got a motorcycle when he was fourteen, and he’ll get a car when he turns sixteen. Thirty years from now I don’t know how well he will remember his fifteenth birthday. What I do know is that Susan and I love our kids an awful lot and do everything we can to try and make them happy, especially on their birthdays. And that’s how I know, even though I can’t remember the details, that I must have had a pretty great fifteenth birthday too.