[dropcap]Y[/dropcap]ou don’t want to read this. Because today’s my birthday, and I’m liable to say anything that comes to mind.

Right now, I’m going to make one of those god-awful speeches like they do at the Academy Awards. You know, the kind that ends with something like: “I love you momma, you believed in me when no one else did!”

You might as well quit reading right here.

Cue the music.

First off: Andrew, who introduced me to beer. God bless you, my boy. To the Eudora Wildcats, for allowing me to hit the only grand slam of my career. A story I still tell today – even though it was only tee-ball.

To my grandmother, whose head rests on an embroidered pillow that reads: “I love you Grandma.” To Daddy, who didn’t even say goodbye before he died. He must’ve thought I was strong enough to handle it. Maybe I was.

To my sister: you’re going to be a great mother.

Thanks Melissa, for being a candle in a foggy world.Lanier: for teaching me how to watch Lifetime Television for Women.

And thank you God. For introducing me to Lyle. Thank you Lyle, for introducing me to Sherry. And thank you Sherry and Lyle, for introducing me to fried calamari.

Thank you to my wife, Jamie, for pimento cheese. For homemade biscuits. And for just this morning, pointing out a barely-visible-to-the-naked-eye, microscopic white hair in my beard.

And for once telling me, “You are impulsive, irrational, your feet smell, and you talk too much. But, I think I’d like to marry you, Sean Dietrich.”

And of course. I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank someone else. A five-foot-tall woman, with iron between her ears, and cotton in her heart. Who has always believed in me.

Even when no one else did.