Birthday Parties

February 11, 2000

BIRTHDAY PARTIES

These come in three flavors: Going to them, which I hated, giving them, which was interesting, and managing them for my own children, which was a challenge.
I hated going to them because I was born with serious hatred of stiff, itchy clothes, an inability to stay clean more than 15 minutes, and very straight hair. Mother attacked with her curling iron. I had to sit still to avoid injury and looked weird when she was finished. It seemed to me that every one of my 35 classmates had a party every year. (Our classrooms held 36 desks, bolted down. There was no need to move them into groups, or make room for creative activity. We came there to WORK.)
At every party I had to be blindfolded and wander around waving a donkey's tail with a dangerous pin in it. At most parties I had to play word games and be embarrassed at always winning. It didn't occur to me to lose on purpose, and if I had the presiding mother would have assumed I was sick and would have told my mother. Always winning is not the path to popularity.
When I was around 7 or 8, a fellow sufferer and I just walked out on a party and went to the Big Dam, (forbidden without adults), took off our shoes and socks and went wading. I stepped on a large rusty nail sticking out of a board. We had no idea how to cope with this and stayed there worrying until my big brother found us. We were half a mile from the party, but I'm sure he knew exactly where to look. The subsequent tetanus shot and the grown up fuss convinced me that parties were to be endured, donkey's tail and all.

The parties my parents gave left no time for donkey tails or word games. One year my father stowed a case of soda somewhere on the local mountain, wrote clues, and taught my brother's friends how to survey to locate each clue, carrying the equipment along. They found the hideout, but the bad boy who had not been invited had found it first. A case of soda was a rare and wonderful thing in those days. Fortunately mother had food and drink ready at home for the weary surveyors.
My birthday followed that one in two weeks, and my father designed a lower level treasure hunt, confined to our property. Another year he set up a May pole and proceeded to divide the guests into two groups, hand out the alternate color streamers, and teach 20 small people how to circle in opposite directions, weaving the streamers around the pole. He kept fairly calm through this and we earned our cake and ice cream. It gave me an appreciation of gamboling on the green, when I read British stories, that I could never have gained without having tried it. This is not a thing one can try out alone. The streamers were lavender and white 3 inch wide crepe paper. Mother was a wizard with crepe paper, for costumes, and party candy baskets with rosebuds, and centerpieces, and funny hats.

I tried to carry on the birthday party tradition but times and manners had changed. By the time the firstborn was nine I decided co-ed parties were not fun any more. For a group of 4 or 5 year old boys I supplied scraps of wood for them to make boats and we trooped down to the lake to sail them. Sailing plus food made a good day. For older girls I baked a lot of cookies (Christmas Cutout Cookies) and set out pots of colored frosting, sprinkles, colored sugar, etc. The guests decorated and baked and happily carried home rather hideous cookies.
When we moved to this refuge in the woods, classroom parties replaced suburban orgies, and we could quietly celebrate at home. We heard that cousins were having birthday parties at the Club, with ginger ale cocktails and a band, but we were having more fun than that every day.

The First Born was sure for years that February 12 was red on the calendar in her honor. The Youngest had the grace to be born in lovely June. But the man in the middle arrived at the end of July. I remember the day we brought him home (after ten hospital days, old style), hearing the Reading Railroad diesel engine blowing its horn without a break, cheering for V-J Day. That July day and every July birthday since was so hot that we began to have a tradition of just eating chocolate cake, and drinking cold milk and agreeing to celebrate some other time. Red Chocolate Cake became the only chocolate cake we would accept. It has never failed here, but I once made it on request in Baltimore and it wasn't quite right. Different pan, gas oven instead of electric, different climate - who knows? This year the Middleman may turn up here en route from Omaha to South Africa on a missionary work vacation, and there will be a chocolate cake in the freezer ready for an alternate date birthday.

The designated frosting, if wanted, is Fluffy White Icing.
Lazy Frosting is added, for tired cooks.