“I recollect nothing that passed this day, except Johnson’s quickness, who, when Dr. Beattie observed, as something remarkable which had happened to him, that he had chanced to see both No. 1, and No. 1000, of the hackney-coaches, the first and the last; ‘Why, Sir, (said Johnson,) there is an equal chance for one’s seeing those two numbers as any other two.’” From Boswell’s Life of Johnson
My father is fond of this anecdote. He is against numerology. All the same, he has now reached the age where people start to say “that’s a great age” so surely a cause for celebration. Happy birthday, Daddy.