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My goodness! It’s almost worth it to reach 81. I have received two weeks of love, gifts, cards, attention , hugs and meals with today, Dec.. 27th, being my real birthday and culminating in a whole tasting room full of visitors, all strangers, singing “Happy Birthday to You” to me and giving me hugs, hugs, hugs. Wow! How lucky can a person get?! I’ve already written about the surprise party my Simi Winery work mates gave me last week, and last night in bed I tried to remember as many of my past birthdays as possible. I did the same today, in between giving out samples of Tapanade and Sesami-Wasabi marinade. I wrote them down as I thought of them, so they are all out of sequence, and I find to my amazement that my early life up until I married has no birthday memories at all. The only thing I can remember about those birthdayas is that everyone gave me gifts which combined my birthday and Christmas, and I hated that On the other hand, little by little memories started coming back, and I was surprised in how many places my birthday popped up. Here are a few: . New Orleans: During WW2, I, a new bride, lived with my Mother-in-law, Amenie in a shotgun cottage on Camp Street. This was where my first child, Mark, was born while his father, recently graduated from West Point, was overseas fighting. I was a D--- Yankee , so many things were strange and difficult for me. For one thing, Amenie, who had married her husband straight out of West Point when she was 16, was still in her 30’s and very domineering. I had never seen giant cockroaches before—the ones that f lew and lived in the palm trees--and the humid heat was oppressive. There were no air conditioners in those days, so at night a window fan in the front of the house pulled some air through from the open window in the back. What I remember about Christmas and my birthday that year were the flowers everywhere—Poinsettas and Azaleas and Camelias brightening everyone’s garden. It was winter, and yet everything was blooming. A real surprise for someone like me who was used to bitter cold and snow in New Jersey in December Mobile, Alabama: At the end of the war my Father-in-law, a full colonel, returned, and we all moved to Mobile where he was District Engineer. By this time little Mark was about two and very bright and very cute. That Christmas and birthday we had a big tree and lots of presents but my husband still had not returned from the war. Little Mark and his granddaddy got on just fine, but the latter insisted that we feed the child grits and eggs every morning. Penrith Plantation, Jackson, Louisiana: My inlaws bought 600 acres and a house after the war, and my growing family—by then my daughter, Stirling, was born—spent much time with them. One Birthday was the most outstanding of my life. There were several plantation homes in the area, most of which contained many black families. On this particular birthday, black plantation workers gathered from all around and then paraded down the dirt road and into our driveway, singing the most gorgeous gospel songs I have ever heard—before or since When they were a arranged in our living room they kept singing for “Miss Janey” and when they put into words the crucifiction of Jesus, tears were running down all their fac4s. Needless to say there weren’t any dry white faces either. I have regretted over and over that I had no tape recorder in those days. What a precious gem that would be to have. Post a comment in response: |
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