Happy Birthday to Me

This is the story of a significant change in my attitude towards humans and the feeling I have for “friends”. I had felt it coming most of my life, but it was this one incident that really made things plain to me and really clarified what I had been thinking for so long.

Sometime in the turmoil of my life I decided to have a party, a birthday party for myself. I began to plan this thing about two months before it occurred. I have a summer birthday and summer birthday person has a hard time mustering a quorum for a shindig, at least it always did seem that way growing up. School gets out, everyone goes on vacation or to camp, and there is no one around for the birthday party. Birthday parties attended by more relatives than friends, with relatives being five times the age or better than the birthday boy, were common in my growing up years. I always realized that the circumstances of the timing were important to the attendance at the party, but it also caused me some problems mentally when only a couple of kids would come to my childhood party and I would be surrounded by my aunts, grandparents and my mom instead of friends. Friends always had things to do, places to be, and people to see on the birthday party day.

Well, it was going to be the summer of my 26th year of life and I thought that since I had been ready to party for a year and a half, or more, this would a great time to celebrate my liberation and my birthday. I talked about the festive occasion at work, and while I didn’t pass out invitations, I did mention the date, the party, the food, the booze, the , the... to my friends at work, in the lab and at the plant. I tried to mention it to the wives and girlfriends of the friends as well. I talked it up about two months in advance, so my friends would put it in the mill maybe mark it on a calendar and plan around it. There was positive response from all the people at the first mention. They checked calendars and looked down the road and gave it a firm thumbs up with nothing looming on the horizon during the months of planning and talking about it. I went on to mention this birthday blowout to the people whom I had known since childhood and since high school, who were still around the area. I mentioned it several times to as many of these people as I could find. I invited one and all personally to the party on June 24^th , which was a Saturday, a perfect day for a party: there was time for recovery from the night before and time to recover after prior to work on Monday. This was part of my conversations with everyone I talked with for those two months and everyone seemed excited about the big party. My lady invited her circle of friends from the college and they were all thinking of having the blast of the century at the party. Outside friends from college and other activities were all invited: several times invited. Asked if they could make it; asked if they planned to attend so I could get a sense of how many to plan for: I had all affirmatives from one and all. I started in April planning for a June 24th party, inviting and talking about the party with my friends, associates, perceived friends and friends of friends. This was going to be great. Once every seven years, or so, does the birthday arrive on a Saturday and this was it, my 26th birthday, and I was on top of it with the party.

I lived in a house out in the country on Kiernan Rd and Bangs in a walnut orchard, outside the town about three miles, where things could get wild and loud if that was the inclination of those who came to party. People knew that for the most part: a party house. I knew the potential for the party and lay in supplies of the leafy herb, the brew of the hops, and wine by case. I started to accumulate the ribs for the barbeque while they were on sale and put them in the freezer wedging the meat in as best I could. I began to figure out the menu and the things needed for the party. My guest list was 28 people whom I invited directly and repeatedly and tried to get assurances from and had heard a positive verbally response. There were about 15 to 20 others indirectly invited because of association or because of the once only invitation. I figured that I would count on 25 solid people, be prepared for 30 and be ready for more with run to the store. I was providing all food and drink, so it would be simple to attend. I lay in all the supplies for entertaining 30 to 50 people easily before the party was even two weeks away.

On the day of the party, my birthday, I got up early to begin, or continue, the prep. I had prepared the won tons and falafels ahead of time for warming in the oven. The dipping sauces for won tons, falafels, chips and other munchies, I prepared that early morning, sweet and sour, Tahiti, salsa, creamy onion dip, Indian curry... I baked the ribs slowly in a low oven so some of the fat was removed and they were partially cooked, big slabs of ribs filled my oven and my counter after the pre-baking. The Ice cream, which I mixed up the night before was removed from the refrig and put in the ice cream freezer so it would chill for a quicker freezing with the hand crank when the guest had begun to arrive, a pre-party activity. The boysenberries that I picked the day before were cleaned, then heated with a small amount of sugar and orange juice until they were warm and heated through to blend the essences of the berry with the sweetness and tartness of the other ingredients and thicken to syrup: a sauce for the ice cream. I also made some chocolate sauce with sweet and condensed milk, unsweetened chocolate and sugar (called 1,2,3 sauce because it is 1 can sweeten condensed milk, 2 squares of unsweetened chocolate, and 1 cup sugar... heated slowly in a sauce pan to just boiling). I prepped the lettuce for the salad and washed the vegetables ready for chopping fresh. Potatoes were peeled and cut into the thick French fries and placed in a pan of water so the starch in the tubers would be converted into sugar. The fresh bread was started with enough dough for two loaves and allowed to rise in the kitchen warming with the heat of the day reaching mid-day.

I cleaned the house a bit and got out a couple of records for the party by early morning. I also called some of the partygoers to see if they could bring their records of choice and make sure they were still in the mood and coming. My cake had been baked, by me, the night before and so I frosted it and decorated it with “Happy Birthday” using a rolled up dishtowel and a metal straw as my decorating tools. It came out pretty good and I got to lick out the frosting bowl myself.

While I prepped the food in the early morning, a friend called up and said that he had got his boat together and he and his wife were heading for the reservoir for the trial run. He might call a couple of other friends, also invited to the party, to go and maybe get another one of the boat owners to get his boat out on the lake for the first time this summer. They would be back to rock the night for the party... He wanted to know if I might need something when they came back in from the reservoir and to tell me there might be a couple of other people with them. While removing the ribs later in the morning from slow cooking in the oven another friend called and said that the alarm had gone off at the plant and he would be late getting to the party and to save him some stuff if the problem was bad. His lady would come when he did. I worked on.

At noon my roommate, my love, my lady of my life, said she would be back about 2:00. She had to go to the campus nursery and deal with the plants. So she left leaving me alone to finish the chores of preparing for my party which I had well in hand. I prepared the corn and got the ribs ready before for the grill. The ribs were done slow cooking in the oven and were stacked in mounds on the drain board under sheets of plastic wrap. The bread, a French twist, which has an egg base and lots of saffron making it brightly yellow and rich, was ready for baking so that got popped into the oven. The cake sat on a plate proudly in the dinning room. The home made salsa was in the covered bowls ready for early arrivals expected around 3:00, the chips mounded in bowls surrounding the Mexican sauces. The house was clean, the lawn mowed, and the barbecue ready to light with an extra bag of briquettes standing by just incase. I pushed my pickup truck into the garage to give extra parking space. The truck had been broken down for six months and I thought that the room would be needed for the partygoers to park their cars that actually ran. I then hosed down the rock driveway so the dust would be cut down and not get on the food being cooked outside. I set a sprinkler in the front, under the huge 75 year old walnut tree, to cool the lawn freshly mowed. Then I spray water into the tree branches and leaves to aid with evaporative cooling, giving the front shaded area of the house a very green cool respite for party goers who arrived while the sun was high. I got the vegetables from the garden for the salad and for munching. I tore up the lettuces and set the newly picked tomatoes in the frig to cool. The summer squash were washed and the French-fried potatoe water was changed to remove the starchy taste and let the sugar continue converting. The dishes, which were a heavy paper plate, were set out, as were the napkins and the plastic forks. All of the kitchen utensil and dishes that had been used so far were cleaned up.

One of the party goers called about 1:00 while I was in the midst of this preparation and said, he an his bro had got a pair of tickets for a concert in the city and they were sorry to miss the bash, but they were heading for San Fran and would toke a load for me at the concert. Another friend called shortly after that and said that he was just waking up and wanted to know when the party started. Their party Friday night was a killer and everyone was still plastered or recovering, but he was sure that they would be out, but probably later not earlier.

O.K. things were shaping up. The food was in place, the house set up, the entertainment procured, the guest list looking good. I was a bit worried because I had formally invited so many people and informally invited many more and it could have gotten out of hand. My grandmother always said when entertaining more is better. Plan for the maximum number of people as if they were all very hungry and then add some. Well, I thought that 25 -30 was a good number, but it could go higher so I planned for about 40 hungry people with plans to make a run to the store if it got bigger. Beer was moved from the refirg in the basement to the main frig and to an ice chest, the red wine was set out with the cork extractor, the white wine was chilled in the frig. By 2:00 I was getting the mental list in my head of what was needed and when it needed to be done. I also started to sample the wine about then and maybe just a taste from the baggy.

People were asked to arrive any time after 3:00, but that I would plan to have food ready to serve about 5:00. Since barbecue is a production piece, a form of entertainment as well as sustenance, it needs to be experience to be appreciated by the party goers who could hear the sizzle, smell the ribs and corn and pick off the small pieces right from the grill. The barbeque should be fired up after some of the guest arrived so they could experience the whole ritual from fire starting to the many aspects of the manly art of cooking outside and experience the whole male food making ceremony. I began the second loaf of bread in the oven about 2:30 since I would need the oven for the corn and to heat the won tons, and the bean dip later after things got going. While the bread baked, filling the house with that warmth not needed in the heat of summer (but the smell of bread warms the soul), I took some of the fresh picked Boysenberries and washed them, dried half the batch for fresh boysenberries for eating and added the rest to the boysenberry sauce for the ice cream giving this syrup some actual fresh berries. I also cut up the Fay Alberta Freestone peaches I had just picked that morning in the orchard across the street and sprinkled a bit of sugar over them to bring out the juices and make a sauce for the ice cream or the cake if people weren’t into the berries.

By 3:00 there was a frenzy to my preparation. As the host, I needed to prep as much as I could so that I could keep the flow of food coming and not appear like just the hired help at the party. I took the Ice cream from the freezer and took out the ice for the cranker. Five quarts of ice cream would never set up in three hours, but it sure cools it down to be in the freezer and makes the hand cranking very quick. I turned the ice cream maker while I went over, in my mind, the food, the order of cooking and of serving, the presentation of each dish, and the timing needed to release the finished product to the guests. About 3:30 I was expecting some of the guest to arrive and to help with a few of the tasks; early arrivals are usually nervous and need something to connect them to the party and to the host. The ice cream got done very quickly so I pour off the salt water and packed the hand freezer with lots of salt and fresh ice to keep it cold. That is when I got the call from my wonderful lady. The work at the nursery had gone well and she had gone over to the Mexican restaurant near the college and hoisted a few brew with some friends. One of the Whalers, the group of about 12 college friends of my lady that were coming to the party, got a bit too much and had to be driven home. All the whalers were part of the invited. (Whalers were the followers of Mr. Whaley a forestry teacher). I was peeking, on wine, and excitement. They would be just a while longer, did I need anything when they came over?

Well, 3:45 came and went and I hosed down the driveway again to prevent the dust from happening on the food. The salad was put together without the dressing and the corn was put into the oven to prepare for the cooking on the grill. The bread had been removed and painted with the egg whites that give it the crust and the glisten brown shiny color. My won tons were placed in the oven to heat and the sauces for the ice cream were removed to the refrig. Chocolate sauce was prepared, but not heated and finished.

At 4:00 I got a call from a relative that will remain unnamed who said that he had forgotten and that he was trying to get it together to get there. I said cool that no one was there yet, but the fire was about to be started and the food cooked so get here. I felt compelled to light the fire so I did. I added a bunch more briquettes for the longer cooking time. I went in and started heating the oil for the fries. When it was hot I started the French fry’s batch after batch, keeping them warm in the oven that was heating the corn on the cob so it was nearly cooked and could be finished in a minute on the grill to give it a smoky taste.

At 4:45 I decided to put on the first grill of ribs and a few of the corns. There were more of the soaked hickory chips added for flavor. On the stereo was Mike Oldfield, Jean Luc Ponte, Cat Stevens lined up and playing one after anoter. I began the ribs on the grill to add the smoke flavor and coat them in a ton of sauce. I also sliced the bread and arranged the table where the food was to be laid out. The hous d’oeuvers were already out and ready for consumption. Someone called about this time and said their kid was sick and they didn’t want to leave her with a baby sitter, so they weren’t coming. I don’t remember who this was because I was in a party mood and very much into the host out of control mode. “Thanks for the head’s up and thanks for not bringing a sick kid to the party.”

By 5:30 the first bath of ribs were done and the next was going on with much of the corn. The smell was party like and I was now very excited. Many of my guests worked until 4:30 or 5:00 so they would be arriving about now. The people from the lake would be showing up shortly and the crowd would begin to be out of control.

By 6:30 the barbeque had died out pretty much and the corn was smoked and done, the ribs were perfect, the fries getting dry, the salad wilting and I found a fly in the salsa (which I just picked out and left the bowl for the late comers to experience as a punishment). I wasn’t doing real well because I had worked like a slave for the last three hours and was now beginning to relax. It was tough to relax when so many were expected and they were minutes away from arriving now all at once it seemed.

At 7:30 the guy who worked at the plant call called to say it would be late if at all when he got there. I think I still said great, see you when you get here, there is plenty of food and we’ll save you some. I changed the music, had another glass of wine and puttered around.

About 8:30 the shadows of the orchard had spread across the yard and now it was twilight on a summer evening. One of the boaters swung by to say that the day was the best and his friends, my friends and invited guest, had had skiing. He said the others, his wife, kids, and the other couples who went with them, (and were invited guests), were at his house getting ready to clean up the boats, and then come on by later. Maybe I could swing by his house later if they didn’t make it to my party. The boats would be there being cleaned and they had picked up some cases of beer to help loosen the dirt.

My lady called right after the boater left and said that when the crew brought the whalers home, someone had bought a case of beer and called some friends. There was a party going on there and they wanted to know if one of the parties could be moved, along with the food and drink, preferably to their house since they were too drunk to drive. The whalers were partying down with drunken friends. I didn’t think I could bring food for 30 on my bicycle since my truck was not working and there was no other transportation at the house.

Around 9:00 PM when the sun was setting for real and I had eaten enough ribs for a platoon of soldiers, had consumed tankard of wine, toked a load of herb, I felt it must be time for dessert. I took the cake, cut a piece from the middle and poured in some of the homemade ice cream in the hole and ate it with my fingers. Who was there to reprimand me? I was alone.

This was a truly surprise party. No one showed up. At one point I thought about the surprise party idea and thought that there was some party that I would get to and everyone would jump out and say, “Surprise!” I thought everyone would drive up together and yell , “Surprise!” I thought they might come out of the orchard and yell, “Surprise!”... But the surprise was, no one came. Not a scant turn out: NO ONE. Not a light turnout: NO ONE. Nobody, not a soul, no friend, no relative, no enemy, no body.

There was a party at the boat owner’s house, about 25 people there. There was a party at the Whalers, about 20 people. There was a party at my bros. house with about 20 people. There were people at a concert, and people at work. There were people who forgot and people who had reasons for not coming to the party. Bottom line is that, surprise! I gave a party and nobody came. A party for myself, a party for my friends, a party for the season, a party to celebrate freedom. Free at last, free at last. Free to be me because that was all there was: alone with myself.

About 10:30 or so I figured out that friendship was something I didn’t understand. I also devised the plan that I would begin to seek living where I was more comfortable: in a place where I didn’t have to count on people.

What are the odds that the world would conspire to cause a person to have a party that no one attended? Has that happened before? I guess if the person is an oaf, a bore, a dweeb, a real out-there kind of a person with bad hygiene or something then people might shy away, but they might say something up front and indicate that they are not intending to come. Does a person bring this on themselves? Does a person drive all the other people away? I always considered myself a kind of normal sort of person, caring and considerate of others, but this kind of thing seems to happen more often than just this once. Two people or a small group of people showing up can commiserate on the problem of a low turn out at a party, but when there is one, it is not easy to share the pain. I was not hurt. I was crucified, dead and buried mentally. But I rose from the dead eventually and I decided that if I put myself in a position to be crucified, then there was the distinct possibility that I would be crucified. My life changed that night alone eating food for 30 and not even lighting the candles on my own birthday cake that I made for myself. Twenty-six years of living and working in the same town all my life and I couldn’t even get one person to come to a party for me, my own party, my birthday party. In the days after my party I don’t think anyone even asked me about my birthday party so I never really told anyone the story of what happened. The gods showed me that there is only me and me alone, all alone.

Ever give a party and are afraid that no one will show up? Be afraid!

Rainforest Birders

From natural din of rainforest comes the shrill sound from a group of binocular clad goof-balls staring in all directions at the tops of the trees, “Look it’s a ruby rump bill sucker or is it Rufus sided ball buster? They are so hard to distinguish at five hundred meters in the twilight against a gray sky with it sitting immobile in that tree. If it would just fly I could see its belly and flight profile and have the species nailed for my life book!”

For gods sake! The tree is barely visible at 500 meters. Even with the binoculars that blurry speck could be a bromeliad, a sleeping iguana, or pile of monkey shit. Tell you what; if that is really even a bird I will eat it. Yep, I will shoot the son of a bitch and eat the little annoyance. I will eat it even if isn’t a bird and can only just fly and that is giving it a great deal of latitude since it could be a big moth, a bat or a flying what’s-you-call-it (I guess there are a lot of flying-what’s-you-call-its around here). I just can’t believe that someone would get excited about blob of gray in a tree at five hundred meters. Even if the stupid bird was sitting right on his wrist, right in front of him, it is just a fluff ball of feathers, beak, and feet, looking pretty much like all other little fluff balls of feathers, beak, and feet. “Oh, no! This one has a ruby stripe under its eye and a brown ring around its ass.” B.F.D is my response to this, who cares? After I shoot it and eat it, who else will care?

When I think of bird watchers I think of watching those little tweedy birds that flutter around the forest so anonymously and quickly they should be eliminated because they look more like twirly-wirlies and other visual anomalies from too much of the “good stuff” people took the sixties. No one can really see those little feathered annoyances all in a dither making such a ruckus as they are jumping around in the bushes and twittering and moving so fast, god who can tell what they really look like? (Unless you shot them to slow them down). I am a mycologist and we have a name for the ‘shrooms that we see that are small and plain and we don’t want to identify: LBMs. An LBM is a little brown mushroom and usually it is kicked into oblivion so it can’t be identified because they all look alike and they are too hard to identify because they could be any of fifteen different mushrooms and it might take all day to separate it from the others and no one wants to spend they time doing that. “Fuck it! An LBM! kick it and pretend it didn’t exist.” That is what the tweedy birds are like. They are just jumping around all alike and none are any different from the other, just moving fast and furious. Those little birds have no description because they don’t stop long enough for any real human to really look at them. If you took a shot gun and blasted the bush where they were, you could grab a bunch of those hapless avian and check them out, but otherwise, the birds are just blurs in the bushes. Bird watchers go crazy trying to check off the “life list” and trying to identify the little fucker, some of which really are rats, agouti, and coati babies. What a joke! One of the watchers spotted the rat-sized Central American agouti scooting across the open ground behind some bushes and into a burrow and identified it as Ruddy Ground-dove. Stupid birder! That agouti can only fly if I throw the lousy rodent after catching it and tossing through the forest before it bites me. Ruddy Ground-dove… Right and I’m going to check that one off my “life list”. Maybe the little agouti ate a dead one before going down its hole. Even I can tell the difference between feathers and fur, four legs and two. Those birders just get too excited.

Those bird watcher types in the rainforest bug the heck out of me. They walk around with their eyes pasted on the tops of the trees as they make their way through the forest trees and vines. What the hell are they thinking? Fer-de-lance do not like to be stepped on, nor do they like to be stepped near, nor do they like to be near by any large critter. These snakes with toxic venom and very big fangs to deliver the poison juice have a unique evolutionary development. They have come up with a strategy, “If I bite it they will come.” The venom of the Fer-de-lance is so toxic that it can kill even a cow. Even a newly hatched snake has enough venom to kill a human. The snake has developed the strategy of bite it, follow it until it dies, which isn’t far, and wait until something comes around that is small enough to kill and eat. These wriggly serpants invade pastures, yards, foot paths, and houses, to attack organisms they could never eat, but could possibly bring them a bunch of smaller scavengers that are the size of a good snack of a decent meal. They are surely in great numbers in their habitat, the forest. Because of forest destruction there is also the destruction of the snake and other predators that eats Fer-de-lance and these poisons snakes are proliferating unopposed. The big hungry predators lay in wait or stalk their prey, ready to attack and kill a wayward bird watcher who is not watching where he or she is going so their dead bodies will bring scavengers like a rat, agouti or coati that they can eat (not really a bad thing I guess).

Those are just the Fer-de-lance that are aggressive snakes ready to bite the skyward looking birders, but are not the only potential rub in rainforest. The bushmaster that get up to 11 feet long and has fangs about two and a half inches long and poison that will knock the socks off every living thing, lies in wait next to the trails or along the edge of the fallen logs. Stepping over a log and not checking or walking unaware down a trail can bring a foot very close to one of these scaly incubuses who does not like to be stepped on. And there the birders go with binocs to their eyes, walking down the trail stumbling into each other and trees and bushes remarking on the birds not snakes. Not watching their step.

In the early morning, before the sun, the birder are all up. The birds can’t see in the dark I guess, they need the light. Just before the light comes up the stupid birds think it is time for everyone to get up so the Mealy Parrots start squawking and alerting the entire world to the fact that the sun will come up in about a half an hour. Imbecile birds! Some animals sleep in and some of us like to hit the snooze button so shut the fuck up! But no, they keep it up until the Howler Monkeys start to scream. The Howlers are very loud and are very annoyed at having to get up yet again before the sun is actually high in the sky and they scream their annoyance at that fact. Their noise is like a large very angry lion in the tree voicing its opinion about the problems of the world. All over the forest the male howlers are screaming while the parrots squawk their encouragement to get up and greet the sun. Other animals begin to join in. The cacophony becomes a din no one can sleep through. This is all started by the Mealy Parrots who need to be shot.

A couple of morning birds greet birders and everyone else who choose to listen to the parrots. The Great Curassows, purported to be the size of a small turkey, but sounds like it might be dinner for 30 people or more. These birds are described by the bird watchers as “providing the tropical American forest with the background sound, especially in the morning.” “Groups of males rhythmically give their very loud calls described variously as ‘cha-cha-KAW-ka’ or ‘’cha-cha-lac’.” Let me say that the birds squawk like eagles being castrated with a pair of pliers and they do it as close to your sleeping quarters as they can get. The birders have no sense of timing or background morning sounds. These birds do not fly as far as I know, but run like a cheetah through the forest when shit is thrown at them from the window or flap of a tent. Those stupid flopping crests on their heads just keep the guns from sighting in for a kill shot. Damn birds keep screaming as they run so they make maximum noise. There are lots of these miserable feathered beasts despite what is said. It is not a pleasant morning forest call after a long night. Birders be damned!

The Great Tinamou is another moronic bird that is an annoyance in the morning and loved by the birders. This bird is described in the bird book as having a pure tone melodious whistle which is characteristic of the forest. The bird is loud and obnoxious in the early morning when it knows people are not quite awake. The Tinamou adds to those Curassows or takes up after the Curassows have been chased off because the bird doesn’t like to run. Oh, my god, such a stupid bird making such a sound on the ground and still being alive today. This bird, the Tinamou, has the body the size of a rugby ball and the head the size of a golf ball. It stands about as tall as a T.V. tray. This dumb bird has adopted the evolutionary strategy of thinking it is invisible when a predator comes around. When a threat is near this bird stands still and thinks, “I am invisible and I can’t be seen, isn’t this cool?” The bird just stands there frozen. If you walked up on them they just stand there thinking they are invisible until you are so close you can actually kick them, which I have done occasionally to teach them they are not invisible. People grab them, kill them, and eat them. Anyway the birds don’t seem to fly even though they are reported to do so, but they are so noisy in the morning they need to be silenced one way or the other. They are noisy in the evening too, but that is ok because most people are up then. Birders just love the “melodic whistle”, like a drunk with a referee’s whistle.

Once all those bird watchers are up in the morning, they are out in the forest watching up not down. They get so excited about the birds in the area they don’t notice the Capuchins monkeys moving in silently above them. These little guys will begin to set up and start lobbing shit, literally shit, on the bird watcher. The Capuchins will also throw pieces of fruit, seeds, sticks, bromeliads and other debris that can be harmful or even deadly. If one is not aware of the Capuchins, a birder could get beaned by a piece of fruit that causes them to be unconscious (pentaclethra fruit weighs about 300g and is hard as a rock). The unconscious birder then could be eaten by ants. The monkeys are not kind to people who pause in their territories. Howler monkeys pee on people near them.

That “life list” is the curse that drives the birders. The “life list” for the uninitiated is the list of species that a birder sees in their life. They need to sort of verify that they really see the species before they check them off. Once the bird is checked off it is gone from the mind of the birder and it is on to the next species as far as I have seen. Verify and move on. Now the blur in the tree at five hundred meters may be a lump of monkey shit next to an orchid moving in the breeze that looks slightly like a blurry eyed tit-mouth, so if two or more birders agree then check that baby off and move on. That stupid list causes people to get up early and go place they should not go. It causes them to walk without watching where they are going and not pay attention to what is around them. That “life list” of birders can be the life of them and the people around them.

age

I was listening to NPR as I do when I ride in the morning. A quote came on the radio for whatever story, “What age would you be if you didn’t know how old you were” (Satchel Paige). I thought about that for about a month and it bugged me and it settled in to begin to really work on my mind. Interesting when you first think of it, but when a person really thinks about it, how old are you anyway? Why does time spiral around with each turn adding another year and weighting a person down? Does it really spiral around or does it just meander?

I remember standing by a Meyer Lemon tree on the side of the house in Modesto I grew up in. I was three years old. There was the sharp tangy sour citrus smell of the leaves and the slightly sweet scent of the ripe lemons. I remember the heat of the day because it was summer, just before my birthday and had on shorts and a stripped tee shirt and my favorite buckle big boy sandals. This was a few days before my fourth birthday and I was alone hiding by the tree practicing making four with my fingers and seeing that it was so much easier than putting up three fingers like adults wanted me to do. Three was so hard for me to do; I needed two hands to make three fingers with one hand. My thumb just was too short to reach over and catch my little finger which bent down with the ring finger. I clearly remember wondering why four did not come before three because four was so much easier to make than three with a person’s fingers. I could easily fold my thumb over inside my palm and hold up four fingers with one hand. It seemed right that the harder numbers to make with your fingers should be made by older kids. That is my earliest clear memory.

A year or so later I was standing on a green vinyl chrome kitchen chair in the kitchen of my house next to the chrome and green Formica kitchen table. This was the summer before I started school and I was still a little kid. Standing on the chair I surveyed the room and waited until my dad walked through. He, of course, told me to get off the chair and asked what I thought I was doing, all that stuff like, was I a crazy kid doing something completely off the wall like that because people don’t stand on chairs. I stayed on the chair long enough to judge how high my head was as compared to his and noticed that even on the chair my head was still shorter than my father’s. What I wanted to see was what the world would look like when I was an adult the age of my father. My few minutes of scanning the world I had not been quite tall enough and I could not imagine being taller. I was already so far from the ground while standing on the chair. If I had got that big medical dictionary and a couple of volumes of encyclopedia and put that on top of the chair that would do been enough to reach the right height. But doing that would be scary tall and dangerous too if I fell. I remember being a bit afraid of growing up and being that tall because it would be dangerous to stand up.

When was about nine and playing with the kids in the neighborhood during the long days of summer sometime in the afternoon having fun and doing all kinds of kid’s stuff. My broth and sister and I got called in to the house for some reason. My mom and some other adult people were in there talking about something and telling us what to do to get ready for something. I can remember plainly thinking that there was a real difference between the way children think and adults think. I can remember standing with a flash of insight at that time that adults do not know what it is like to be a kid; they have forgotten being a kid even though they must have been one once. Adults change and become adults and leave childhood behind. At that moment I was in the laundry room and I thought that I recognized how a kid really thinks and that I would always remember that forever even when I became an adult. I would remember that moment and know how a child thinks and be able to understand them because I would remember the difference and maybe not let myself change. I can see myself standing there telling myself to never forget how a child thinks so I will not be one of those adults who just do not understand what it is like to be a kid.

So how old would I be if I didn’t know how old I was? Time is all confused and does not run in cycles of years, but is a path that is faster or slower at times. I don’t see cycles so much in my life.

I am still that little kid standing by the lemon tree wondering about how to make three with his fingers. Something happened and I didn’t notice being able to grab that little finger with my thumb all with one hand, but I almost always remember standing by that tree when I make three with my fingers. I am still that person who was not brave enough to put the books on the chair to see the world from view of an adult. I don’t remember changing from that position of viewing the world of knees and thighs to the faces of adults eye to eye. I do think about the change from time to time and I remember being on that chair and being afraid to grow up because I would be too tall. Thinking as a kid I believe I really held onto and that is why I do what I do, teach middle school. I really remember being a kid and have tried to keep that memory and fought the invasion of the adult thinking.

My birthday is at such an odd time it often goes unnoticed so it is easy for the world to miss and I don’t really realize the passage of time. How old am I if I didn’t know how old I was? I look through the eyes of the little boy by the lemon tree wondering why things are; I’m the child on a chair trying to view the world of the future; I’m trying to remember how it is to think clearly with imagination and freedom without responsibility like the child inside. I haven’t changed inside at all. I still have questions and still seek answers.