I have long held the belief that a large part of being successful lies in just showing up. Nowhere has this been more true for me, personally, than the day I was born.
I was not the first baby born in my city in 1976, but I was the first baby born in the South Hills area, leading to my winning the community newspaper's First Baby contest that year. In fact, I crushed the competition: I was born at 4:08 a.m., and the runner-up didn't show until noon. I hope she's enjoying life at age 31. I'm sure she's manning the fryer at Burger King or something, having showed up for her lawyer interview 8 hours late.
Naturally, I won a king's ransom of prizes for having the good sense to be born on the right day at the right time. According to the press clipping, these prizes included:
Accompanying that clip was, perhaps, the best photo ever taken of my immediate family. Here we are, in all our Bee Gees-era glory:
