My 50th Birthday Parties

OK—Mucho surprises here. Of course I knew when my 50^th birthday was, but I had no idea that there were even one, but two awesome surprise parties planned courtesy of my friends and family!  The first party happened in my hometown of Milwaukee, and the general plan was for Sandy & I to fly in and get together with a bunch of my friends and have a few beers, etc. but no big deal (or so I was told).  Well, it turned out that since some of my close friends and old rock bandmates were in a band together at the time (see “Flashback” story), they decided to schedule a gig at a local bar called “Puddler’s Hall” in Bayview to coincide with me being in town for my birthday.  Once we got to Milwaukee, I was told about the gig and naturally attended.  Much to my surprise, it turned out that a major purpose of the gig was for me to do some jamming with my old bandmates!  We hadn’t played together in 30 years, but the upside was that we were all better players than we had been in 1982 when we were only 20 years old.  Here are some pics and a video, and I’ll never forget that party.  It was a very special evening for me and many thanks to my friends for setting it up.  I hope I didn’t annoy all of you with any much-too-long guitar solos—Hahahaha!!!  I’ll blame Steve the drummer for the one in the video just below.  I was trying to finish “Hey Joe” and he just kept pounding away! Click the link below and you be the judge…

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Surprise Birthday Party Number 2!

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Sandy & I came back to Phoenix after a great birthday week in Milwaukee and Chicago, and our friends Marc & Traci had another party planned a couple weeks after my birthday.  They had parties all the time, and I had already had my big 50th surprise party in Milwaukee. I was told it was a small party and that it had a 60s/70s theme, and that all sounded good to me (I had plenty of wardrobe for it—Hahaha!).  We arrived at Marc’s house and there were a few other cars parked outside that I recognized from our local group of friends, but nothing unusual.  I should explain that Marc had the most awesome party house at the time (you can tell in the photos)—It was about 8,000SF and just made for entertaining.  In fact, all Marc’s homes have been awesome party houses, and we’ve spent countless days and nights at them over the years. 

As we walked in the door I honestly didn’t suspect a thing, and it was actually a little quieter than normal in the house.  Sandy & I walked through the large atrium near the front door and nobody was hanging out except the dogs, but when we got to the main doorway to the main room, at least 50 people jumped out and yelled “Surprise!!!” as the music cranked up.  I honestly was never so surprised in my life!  After the party in Milwaukee, I thought that was it and wasn’t expecting this at all!  Thanks Sandy, Marc & Traci for making this thing happen!  You can tell from the pics that Sandy & Traci went all out on the theme décor, and we had another absolute blast as usual.  Who else could be lucky enough to get not only one but TWO surprise parties for his 50^th birthday?  Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! And who could be lucky enough to have so many close friends at both of them?

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