SwanShadow Thinks Out Loud

Twenty-one years ago today, my daughter KM was born.

And, as they say in the comics, nothing would ever be the same again.

Clearly, from my perspective, KM’s birth is far and away the most significant event ever to occur on March 25 throughout the entirety of human history. (Which, if you think about it, is all the history there is. It’s not as though any of the other creatures who inhabit this planet are writing this stuff down.) If, however, one wanted to think about the importance of this date from a more global perspective, here’s some grist for the mill.

• According to tradition, Venice (the one in Italy, not the one in southern California) was founded on this date in 421.
• Robert the Bruce assumed the royal throne of Scotland in 1306.
• Titan, the largest moon of Saturn (and the birthplace of Saturn Girl, of Legion of Super-Heroes fame), was discovered by Christiaan Huygens in 1655.
• Slave trading was abolished in the British Empire in 1807. (About time!)
• Greece — a lovely country where I spent two years during my halcyon youth — declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1821, and found itself compelled to make its own footstools from that point forward.
• Beginning one of the most notorious travesties of the American justice system, the Scottsboro Boys were arrested in 1931.
• The European Economic Community (what we Americans used to call the Common Market) was founded in 1957.
• John Lennon and Yoko Ono began their first Bed-In for Peace at the Amsterdam Hilton in 1969.
• In 2006, Kyle Huff shot and killed six people at a party in Seattle before turning his weapon on himself, in what came to be known as the Capitol Hill massacre.

KM shares her birthday with such notables as…

• The late sportscaster Howard Cosell.
• The equally late Patrick Troughton (the Second Doctor in Doctor Who).
• Astronaut Jim Lovell (who narrowly avoided becoming “the late Jim Lovell” aboard Apollo 13).
• Film critic Gene Shalit.
• Feminist icon Gloria Steinem.
• The Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin.
• The Queen of Rock and Roll, Elton John. (Sorry, Sir Elton, but you know you’d have made that same joke.)
• Actresses and style-setters Sarah Jessica Parker and Marcia Cross.
• American Idol contestants Katharine McPhee, Carmen Rasmusen, and Jason Castro.
• Auto racer and GoDaddy pitchwoman Danica Patrick.
• Three former members of KM’s beloved Golden State Warriors: Avery Johnson, Bob Sura, and Marco Belinelli.
• The charming proprietor of my local comic book shop, Kathy Bottarini.

Happy birthday, Punkin. Your mom and I love you very much.

You go, Supergirl! I mean… Superwoman.

Yeah, that’ll take some getting used to.