Monday, August 11, 2008

Birthdays Old and New

August is a special month in B-Days for me.My grandmother's was August 10th,A sister in law is August 2nd,A good friend the 26th and one old girlfriend I got serious with is the 7th and my high school sweetie who I'm still in touch with turns 50 on the 15th.When we started dating she was a sweet 15 year old sophomore and I was a worldly 19 year old Senior.Plus my blog friend Susan turns out to be an August girl also.On saturday Sweet Pea went to a B-Day party a few houses down for a buddy who was turning 5.She's a sweet girl who's parents are both NYTimes reporters and not quite as friendly as her.She had a puppy party where they bring in a group of puppies for happy little girls to play with.I was thinking back that when I was a lad we really didn't have birthday parties where one went to a friends house and then the cycle began where if you were invited to this persons party you had to invite him to yours.I lived in simpler times.I recall going to only one B-Day party in the third grade where Joe Meizensahl invited a group of his Saint Margaret Mary guy classmates over.I think we all wore coat and ties and there were about 7 of us.Since his dad ran the Prince Spaghetti plant in Rochester I was looking forward to pasta and meatballs.Instead his mother served us homemade fried chicken with mashed taters,homemade gravy and green beans that I still recall to this day as some of the best fried chicken I've ever had.After, his dad showed Little Rascals shorts on a projector and then Joe's collection of old piggy banks that all did something with the coin.Myself I watched with half interest hoping that his mom would bring out the leftover fried chicken which she did.After that I always looked for his mom in church on Sunday.She was one of those ladies who back then had those little fox stoles with the fox's head still on.I used to hope we would sit behind one at church so I could study the face of the Fox wishing I could close my eyes also and sleep.That is until I became an altar boy and got to see the whole church thing from the altar where we felt like princes looking down on the rabble before us.That and sneaking some altar wine after mass.So happy birthday to all the Leos and other August bday folks out there.

1 comment:

Susan said...

hey thanks! Also, it is my dream to be that mom. Not the fox thing, but the "dang that lunch rocked" thing.