If you’ve never heard of the holiday Baker’s Dozen you’re in good company. Aside from a handful of acquaintances, only people who have read my previous article, Celebrating the Baker’s Dozen, will have heard of it at all, and most of them won’t remember. I, however, can never forget Baker’s dozen.

Put briefly, Baker’s Dozen is the anniversary of the last day I was in New York City, before a monumental move that took me first cross country, and then to the other side of the world. Both events have been written about in detail elsewhere, so I won’t recount them here. I will, however, tell you how I celebrate Baker’s Dozen.

Every year, on July 12 and 13, I try to do something I’d never done before to commemorate the beginning of a grand adventure. I want to never forget the strangeness, the freshness, the freedom of doing something I’ve never done before. The opening of doors to futures you can’t have possibly foreseen. Baker’s Dozen is a time to try new things, or revisit things I’ve loved and left behind. This year, so far, I’ve kept the tradition.

To give you a brief idea by way of comparison, on the first Baker’s Dozen, we visited people I knew from online but had never met, in a part of Tasmania I’d never before visited. The second year saw me swimming in an outdoor, naturally heated pool, in the middle of the winter at Hastings Caves. The third year took me to Savoy Baths, where I enjoyed a day of spas, steam rooms and saunas. And last year, after realizing very late that Baker’s Dozen was upon us, my wife and I (my traditional Baker’s Dozen companion), ate at the Casino, and spent the evening gambling, something we’ve never before done (and not something I’m likely to do again anytime soon).

This year, we had a couple of plans, one of which, at least that did not materialize. We were going to go to one of the local wildlife parks, since I’d never been to any of them. But it’s cold and I had a headache, and instead, while doing a few errands (shopping sort of stuff), we decided to take the dog for a run in one of the parks near our house. We do this fairly regularly, so it can’t be counted as a Baker’s Dozen outing. However, while we were there, I noticed a hill, not very high and not very steep, but a hill nonetheless.

When I was a kid, I remember rolling down grassy hills and this one was much like those had been. Well, who really remembers, but for all I know, it could be. So up I went, the dog running after me. I lay down on the ground at the top of the hill and started to roll.

Sky…grass…sky…grass…sky…grass, the dog nipping at me all the way down. I couldn’t stop laughing. I enjoyed it so much, I did it twice more before surrendering to the inevitable motion sickness, realizing only then it hadn’t been too long since I’d eaten three hot dogs.

Tomorrow, if it’s on, we’ll be taking a tour of the Cadbury Chocolate Factory (something I’ve also never done), but even if we don’t, it doesn’t matter.

I spent the fifth year anniversary of Baker’s Dozen renewing my acquaintanceship with a childhood memory.

Links to past articles...

Celebrating the Baker's Dozen
• Baker's Dozen article
• Reflections of a Recovering Author part 1
• Reflections of a Recovering Author part 2
• Reflections of a Recovering Author part 3
• Origami Salad