Gonna Sip Bacardi Like It's Ya' Birthday

Last week was my son's 7th birthday. Next Monday is my 41st. Thinking about that made me realize that he's had nearly three times as many birthday parties as I've had.

Back when I was a kid, we didn't have a party year after year after year. At least I didn't, and I wasn't invited to all that many, so I'm assuming. Maybe I wasn't very popular.

I can recall all these parties clearly (except maybe the last part of the last two since they involved a fair bit of alcohol).

When I was six we had some kids over to my house. All boys of course. I remember exactly who was there: Bobby Bogle, Mark Phillips, Dennis Kenniston, and Chris and Mark Sidoti. And my mother. That's it! We played games, put on funny hats, and ate cake. It's was a blast! In 1973, we used to dress up pretty nice to go to our friends parties. I'm thinking of the pictures of my party. Everyone wore long pants. One kid even wore a turtle neck. In June.

For my sixteenth, I invited over my two best friends Bill and Dan and each of our girlfriends, Laurie, Cathy, and Deidre. We had a cookout and ate in my parents basement playroom. Then we went down to the park and played basketball for awhile, which was really an excuse to get out of the house so we could go sit by the crick and makeout. (Aside: where I come from a flowing body of water bigger than a stream and smaller than a river is a "crick". Some people called them "creeks". The Dutch call them "kills". But we went to make out by the "crick".)

That party ended in disaster because the gift my girlfriend Deidre gave me was way too small. It was a necklace with an Italian horn - very stylish in 1983. She lost it because we all sort of laughed when I couldn't get it around my neck. She was only 14 at the time, and I remember realizing at that moment that she was a little too immature for me. Of course we went out for another year and a half, but that day was the beginning of the end.

My favorite gift that year was The Police's Syncronicity album. I played it until I wore it out. (Well, no not really. It got peed on by our cats along with all my other great records.)

For my 25th birthday, my wife, who was married to someone else at the time, and another friend, arranged a surprise happy hour one Friday after work (we all worked at the same place). I was living in DC then. One surprise guest was another former co-worker of ours whom I had casually dated a while before. We hooked up again for a couple months as a result of this party. It didn't last, though. She lived in Laurel, Maryland, and it was just too much hassle to trek back and forth. Shallow, huh? Anyway, I had another semi-serious relationship for a year or so, then my wife got a divorce, I sidled on up, and we ended up here. Funny how things work out.

Then last year, my wife threw a big blowout surprise party here at the house. Seafood catered by The Seafood Company (which closed recently, I just found out), lots of friends, beer, and fun. Good times. The diversion that allowed her to set up for the party was a round of golf in the early afternoon, and like a fool I still didn't pick up on the scheme when my playing partner drove home all the way from Ole Monterrey at about 20 MPH.

So there are my four parties. At seven, TB has had a bunch more. Starting about age three (maybe two, I don't remember), we've always had some kind of event party for his friends: the Transportation Museum, Chuck-E-Cheese (once only, thankfully), Thunder Valley (shared party with another boy - that was utter chaos - and we did it two years running). This year, at the Skate Center (although we haven't arranged it yet).

Then, of course, we have the "family" birthday for him here at the house. Since our local family is just the three of us now (four before G'diddy passed on), it usually ends up being several other families as well. So that's how he's had a dozen parties to my four.

Life is good for the TB, no doubt.