Oh Gawd! Both daughters have found my secret hideout! Now I really have to straighten out and fly right.

As "Lana" was so kind to point out and as seconded by her sister "Tenjiro", today is my birthday. I was a little depressed this morning but I went out on my bike and felt better. I rode out to the abandoned runway and made my way down to the firing range. I went down the length of the range marveling at the distance they shoot. I can hear them occasionally in the afternoon after work, their machine guns rattling and the pop of the M-16s. Down at the end I found a land hermit crab shuttling his green mossy shell across the tarmac. He must have been three inches long. On the way home I nearly wiped out on a pole sticking out into the trail.

At work the Chamorro women invited me to join them for lunch where they wished me a happy birthday. We ate too much and laughed and kidded each other. I had to make a run back to the room at that point but stopped at the office mailbox in the hopeless pursuit of mail, and there it was! Bundles of mail! I had three packages from home and three birthday cards! My windshield wiper relay is here as well as my father's jack knife and a map he drew of the area where he was stationed on Guam in 1947. There were a couple of books, and Charley Noble even sent me some more of the mail that has accumulated in my mailbox back in Maine. Mostly bills but welcome anyway.

Now the day is drawing to a close and I have to decide what else to do to round off my day. One of the women at lunch asked what I was going to do on my birthday. "Well," I said, "the list of things to do is endless." I could go back to my room to sit around or go back to my room to stand around." But I think I will go down to the marina and get the videotape to work on passing the test so I can rent one of the big Boston Whalers and go out on the water this weekend.