You say it's your birthday...it's my birthday too, yeah!....

 So this afternoon, at 1:59pm, 55 years ago, Lil Baby Polt came into the world.

Fifty five years old!  How did that happen?  And quickly!?!?

This is how the solar system was aligned when I came into the world:

And how about we look at some other 55 things:

- The 55th Miss America was Elizabeth Garcen from Arkansas back in 1982 (when I was 14).

- The 55th element on the periodic table is Cesium:

(somewhat ironically, the symbol for cesium, CS is almost my initials!)

- This is the iconic and beautiful Betty White, when she was 55 years old in 1977 (when I was 9).

- The song at #55 on this week's Billboard Hot 100 is "Shirt" by SZA.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, I have heard of neither the artist nor the song. 

I was going to put the video here, but after listening to a bit of it, I just don't like the song.  So screw it. 

- The 55th Speaker of the US House Of Representatives was the great Tip O'Neill, from 1977-1987.

- Interstate 55 runs north to south from roughly Chicago to New Orleans. (I have never traveled this route, although I had to cross it one time in my life on my trip to Ft. Polk, Louisiana 30 years ago...when I was 25)

- the winner of the Best Picture Oscar at the 55th Annual Academy Awards (in 1983, when I was 15) was Gandhi. 

- The International Dialing Code for Brazil is 55.

- the 55th episode of Star Trek: The Original Series was "Assignment: Earth", with Gary Seven, his 'cat' Isis, and a young Teri Garr (shown when I was just a smidge over 4 months old).

- The Guest Host of the 55th episode of Saturday Night Live was Steven Martin, with musical guest The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, shown in January of 1978 (when I was 11 years old).

And now, for the obligatory Comic Book stuff:

- The cover of Uncanny X-Men #55, published in April of 1969 (when I was just about a year and a half old).

- the 55th member of the Avengers was Triathlon, who joined in Volume 3, #27 in April 2000 (when I was 32 years old).

- the 55th member of the Justice League was Silver Sorceress who joined in Justice League Europe #20 in November 1990 (when I was 22 years old). 

- The 55th member of the Justice Society was Kent V. Nelson, the seventh person to wear the mantle of Doctor Fate, who joined in the Justice Society Of America, volume 3, #30, published in October 2009 (when I was 41 years old).

- The 55th member of the Legion Of Super-Heroes was Echo, a former villain who reformed and joined during the Five Years Later gap, first mentioned (although never shown) in Legion of Super-Heroes volume 4, #28 in April, 1992 (when I was 24 years old).

And damn, I remember when I thought 30 year old people were really old!  But what were some famous people doing when they were 55?  Like people from Time Magazine list of the Most Significant Figures In History, published in 2013 (when I was 45 years old). 

-When Jesus was 55, he was...well dead and risen for over two decades.

-When Napoleon was 55, he was dead for 2 years.

-When Muhammed was 55, he was involved in the Battle Of Uhud, which, according to Wikipedia, is the only battle of the Muslim-Quraysh war that the Muslims didn't win.  But Muhammed lived on for nearly 10 years more, and won more battles afterwards.

- When William Shakespeare was 55, he had been dead for 3 years.

- When Abraham Lincoln was 55, he was reelected President of the United States, and was just a year from his assassination.

- When George Washington was 55, he attended the Constitution Convention in Philadelphia and served as president general over that body.  He also was only a year and a half from becoming the first President of the USA.

- When Adolf Hitler (yeesh, TIME what the hell) was 55, he was Fuhrer of the Third Reich and a year away from suicide and the defeat of his nation. 

- When Aristotle was 55, he was living in Athens and composing some of his most famous works.

- When Alexander The Great was 55, he had been dead for over 20 years

- When Thomas Jefferson was 55, he was Vice President of the USA, a few short years from being elected to his 2 terms as president.

- When the first woman on the list, Elizabeth I of England, was 55, she was the 30th year of her reigh and oversaw the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

(take this list with a grain of salt tho, they had Reagan listed at the 32nd most significant, higher than Ben Franklin, and have George W. Bush at 36, higher than FDR, Freud, Gandhi or Galileo.  Clearly whoever put this list together is obscenely biased towards Republican politicians)

As for other Famous people, not on this list: 

- When President Biden was 55, he had just started his fifth term as a senator from Delaware.

- When David Bowie was 55, he released the album "Heathen" and toured promoting it...but clearly his best songs/high points of his career were behind him.

- When Anne Rice was 55, she published the stand alone novel "Servant Of Bones".

- When Picasso was 55, he was working on perhaps his most famous work "Guernica".

- When Oprah Winfrey was 55, she was working on starting up her own network: OWN, The Oprah Winfrey Network.

- When Robert Downey Jr was 55, Tony Stark had been dead for over a year.

- When Cristiano Ronaldo was 55....well, he's actually still 18 years away from that, so...

- When Madonna was 55, her charity Malawi Rising had built schools in Malawi to educate 4000 students there...and like Bowie, the best of her career was behind her.

- When John Madden was 55, he was at the peak of his sportcasting career, teamed with Pat Summerall and doing 8 Super Bowls with him over the years.

- When Dame Maggie Smith was 55, she was still a few years away from both Minerva McGonagall in Harry Potter and the Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey, BUT, she still had three Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress, one nomination for Best Actress and one Oscar win for Best Supporting Actress AND Best Actress!

So, all in all, it's not bad being 55.  Sure as hell beats the alternative! 

POLT