Non-australopithecus garhi

According to the Becoming Human website: "Australopithecus garhi ("garhi" means surprise in the Afar language) is a gracile australopith species ... found in the Middle Awash of Ethiopia. Found in deposits dated to 2.5 million years ago ... Au. garhi is important because it may be the oldest hominin species to make stone tools."

The name choice reflects Au. garhi's "surprising" features, e.g., its combining "a projecting apelike face and small braincase, similar to the Lucy species ... [with] teeth [that] were much larger" than expected. But it also no doubt reflects the discoverers' delighted surprise at their good fortune of stumbling on such a rare and important fossil.

Yesterday I had my own, albeit australopithecine-free, delighted garhi. I turned, ahem, 60 years old (which sounds better than saying I started my seventh decade), and I had thought I wouldn't mention it here despite the precedent from ten years ago. I still feel, knock on wood, exceptionally good and fit and so forth, but in some respects one doesn't like where it's all inevitably heading, even if the pace of retreat remains slow (tightly controlled retreat a la Hannibal's center at Cannae, but without his cavalry sweeping up the wings),

But it turned out that - choose your metaphor, either behind my back or under my nose (I don't think it could be both at the same time), a garhi was being prepared for me, in the form of a surprise birthday party.

In retrospect, there were several clues.  But being preoccupied with X, Y, and Z, as well as perhaps unconsciously unwilling to assume or expect anything, I genuinely preserved a blithe, almost Clouseau-ean, unawareness of what was afoot. So I was truly surprised, as well as moved, when I returned home with my wife (the master planner), thinking that we were on our way to dinner out, and found close to 50 people waiting there, along with all the food, drink, etcetera, that would be suitable for such a gathering.

There were people there whom I had first met in each of the six decades that I have now completed, and in every stage of my life. There were long-distance travelers from the North, South, and West who had decided to make the time to do this. People I see a fair amount, and others whom I hadn't seen for a very long time.

I don't want to get too maudlin here, but I am grateful to more people than I can say for how enriching to me it has been to know all of you.