The Invisible Man Turns 75

That's not actually what people used to call my stepfather.  They didn't say he was invisible.  They used to question whether he existed at all.

Ric was (and is) a very hard-working man.  So if we were going on a trip, he opted out, because he stayed at home and kept working.

So the running joke from people outside the immediate family became that he wasn't really there at all, and that my mother had made him up as a cover story.

But he's real, and he's still here.  He took good care of us after my parents divorced and he married my mother.  He took good care of her, or as good as he could, even when she didn't make it easy to do so.

And he has made it to 75 years old!  Something he had seriously questioned whether he was going to do.

I figured he would make it.  He had a good role model with his mother, our Grandmama, who lived to see her 90's.

So happy birthday, Ric, and congratulations on making it to three quarters of a century!  Let's see you make it to 100!

We love you!