The Cherry Blossom Festival at 40. Here’s a toast to 40 more!

Forty is the most dreaded of birthdays.

When you turn 20, you are convinced you have the world by the tail. When there are 55 rings around your tree, you celebrate getting the senior discount at the grocery store. At 65, you consider yourself blessed to still be on your journey. Being called an “antique” or “old-timer” no longer bothers you.

At 40, though, life brings out the taser. Friends wear black armbands to your birthday party and crack jokes about calling the fire department when they light the candles on your cake. They giggle at the imposing banner in your living room. “Lordy, Lordy (insert name) is 40!!!”

Some may try to comfort you by claiming you don’t look a day over 30. Don’t be fooled. They secretly delight in your suffering.

Although the Cherry Blossom Festival turned 40 this year, nobody is wearing black. Pink is still the dress code. Not enforced, but strongly suggested.

Sure, it has collected a few scars and wrinkles along the way. But we all should rejoice in this mile marker on the highway. The “Pinkest Party on Earth” continues to hold an important place on the calendar.

After all, when you live in a place with this much springtime beauty, you want to share and celebrate it with others. In Macon, we don’t call it March Madness. It’s March Gladness. Over the past four decades, it has become part of our DNA.

Look at the many things that divide us. Politics. Race. Religion. Social issues. That’s why we should embrace our common denominators. They are reminders that, despite our differences, we all live under the same sky. We smell the same blossoms, eat the same flavor of cherry ice cream and watch the same parade, no matter which side of the street we stand on.

Forty years ago, festival founder Carolyn Crayton came up with the idea for a three-day tribute to the late William Fickling Sr., on the weekend before his 79th birthday on March 23, 1982.

It was Fickling who planted the city’s first Yoshino cherry trees and gave away thousands to neighborhoods and local businesses during his lifetime.

The three-day celebration in honor of the “Johnny Cherryseed of Macon” was held on the Wesleyan College campus. It was so well-received Crayton campaigned for a 10-day festival the following year, and she got her wish.

The rest is history … and credibility. Macon has been “Pinkistan” ever since, rolling out the pink carpet for everything from pink poodles to pink pancakes.

Although it routinely has been listed as one of the top 100 annual events in North America, there is plenty of other competition in the largest state east of the Mississippi River. You literally could attend a festival in Georgia every day of the year and never run out of places to go and things to do.

If it blooms, chances are it will be celebrated somewhere — from dogwoods to azaleas to daylilies, forsythia, geraniums, roses, daisies, hydrangea, sunflowers and even pine trees.

If it comes out of the ground, and you can put it in your mouth, there are festivals dedicated to strawberries, watermelons, peaches, onions, blueberries, apples, peanuts and pumpkins.

Even though you can’t eat the Yoshinos — that’s a common curiosity of tourists — the breathtakingly beautiful cherry trees are the eye candy of the spring.

Except for a couple of wet, stormy days, this year’s festival has been the beneficiary of nice weather. The trees were late bloomers but slowly began to show their faces toward the end of the week.

Of course, March is an unpredictable time to plan any outdoor activity. The weather is a basket case. Never trust a month that tries to pack all four seasons into the same suitcase.

The festival’s 40-year travelogue has featured heat waves, frost warnings, flood watches, high-wind advisories and even snow flurries. The old saying is that March comes roaring in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, but the menagerie is more like a cross between a mad dog and a chameleon.

Two years ago, the festival was one of the early casualties of the COVID lockdown, shutdown and smackdown. Many wondered if it could recover. The economic impact of not having Macon’s largest annual event was devastating.

But it has shown remarkable resiliency. It met the challenges, made the adjustments, got back on its feet last year and hit the ground running this year. Barring any mid-life crisis, it is here for the long haul.

Festival director Stacy Moore called the 40-year mark “significant in the organization’s history.’’

“The festival has experienced a rebirth over the last several years and is poised to grow and expand under our current leadership,’’ she said. “I am forever grateful for the vision and mentorship Carolyn (Crayton) has provided to get us where we are today.’’

In 1983, former Macon Mayor George Israel opened the inaugural festival with these words: “Some 100 years from today, may we find our descendants carrying the tradition on and on.’’

Lordy, Lordy, the festival is 40.

Here’s a toast to 40 more.

Ed Grisamore teaches journalism at Stratford Academy in Macon.