Ghosts of Birthday Parties and Birthday Cards Past
Today is my birthday. When I was growing up birthdays were by far my favorite holiday. Today's list is assorted birthday hijinks.
Age 0 - I arrive on the day after Thanksgiving, which happens to be my mother's birthday. Maybe this is why I like leftovers so much!
Age 6 - This was the first birthday party I had, or at least that I remember having. We lived in Montana at the time, and most of the invitees were kids from our block or kids from my kindergarten class. At this point, I remember almost none of their names besides Brandon, who was my first ever best friend.
Age 10 - My parents didn't throw a birthday party for us every year like some kids got, so the next up was one I had in fourth grade. At a guess, the attendees were probably Josh, Joe, Jason, Derek, Mike... and maybe someone else I've forgotten, although I don't think so. I wasn't friends with Ryan yet, and neither of the Chads nor Lizard (it's a whole story) had moved to my town at that point. I distinctly remember having an indoor snowball fight using paper balls in the then empty living room.
Age 13 - A bar mitzvah isn't really the same as a birthday party, but mine happened to be the weekend of my birthday and there was certainly more food and family than any subsequent party I've had.
That was it for growing up in terms of formal parties. In college and young adulthood I always had birthday plans, but they were rarely formal parties. The only one I remember clearly is my 21st birthday, of course.
Age 21 - My 21st birthday was the day before Thanksgiving, and I was on co-op in Lexington, KY. The relatives I stayed with went out of town somewhere. I was leaving to go back to Cleveland after work. I managed to lock myself out of the house after work, and the locksmith ended up having to drill out the lock and replace it before I could get my keys, which burned a good hour. Then on the drive north there was some of the worst traffic I've ever driven through. The cause of this traffic was not just the usual Thanksgiving traffic, but that a semi had overturned and blocked every single lane. Here's the catch: it wasn't on MY side of the highway. The traffic was caused mostly be people slowing down to gawk! The drive from Lexington to Cincinnati took nearly three hours, or more than double the usual amount. I showed up unannounced at Jenny's (who was jenny31978) house. Her mother, who liked me for some reason, fed me and thus fortified I made it to Cleveland. Of course, by the time I got there, everybody who had planned to go with me got tired of waiting and headed out. In an age before cell phones, I had no way of finding them, and I was exhausted anyways. On the next day, Phil and I went to see Freekbass at the old Peabody's in the Flats. That was the first time I ever saw them. The opening act was a truly terrible local band called "Three Penny Pussy" whose lead lyric was "I wouldn't suck my dick if I were you" and then got worse. Thank goodness for legal alcohol!
Once I got to be an adult, my birthdays started getting substantially more elaborate when I had both money and my own space.
Age 27 - I had a "brunch in the evening" party at my old apartment in Coventry which had quite a few attendees.
Age 28 - I had the first every "chili taste off" party at my old apartment in Coventry. This was less work than brunch. A pattern was born.
Age 32 - In honor of that age 28 party, this was billed as the "2nd Annual Phi Kappa Theta Black Friday Chili Feed / Birthday Party". As the name implies, it was mostly limited to my fraternity brothers. I was trying to tap those people who came back to Cleveland for Thanksgiving, while simultaneously effectively limiting the number of people who attended to something manageable.
Age 34 - Same party, same location, mostly the same guest list.
Age 35 - Same party, same location, mostly the same guest list.
Age 36 - At this point I started calling the party the "annual but not consecutive Black Friday" party. I also opened up the guest list to basically everyone I know because the number of PhiKaps who made it back to Cleveland was shrinking to a tiny amount. Apparently there were 36 or 38 attendees, depending on which resource you reference. Menu here.
Age 37 - Same party, same location, ever expanding guest list.
Age 39 - Same party, same location, ever expanding guest list. 36 attendees; I even have photos.
Age 40 - The weekend prior to my birthday I had a small kid-friendly ice cream party at Malley's. Then on I held the "The 8th Annual But Not Consecutive Black Friday Birthday Party!", which was the last edition of the party held thus far. 37 people attended, most with photographic evidence. on Saturday night, a very small number of people joined me at the local tiki bar. Three parties is not excessive.
Many of the years not listed lacked parties because I was out of town for Thanksgiving (Age 42, for example). Others I just didn't want to do one (Age 41). This year the pandemic obviously precludes any parties.
My favorite thing about Facebook, bar none, is the "it's so and so's birthday" feature. As much as I like wishing people a happy birthday, it seemed a bit impersonal, which combined with my having read how to Win Friends and Influence People probably explains why I started sending 200+ birthday cards a year in 2016. That was expensive, but after one year off in 2017 I figured out how to do it more cost effectively and resumed it for (for good, I hope) in 2018. People seem to really appreciate it, although I can't say it's particularly increased the number of cards *I* get. I'm not sure if people keep their cards. I keep quite a few of the ones I get. Is that weird? Well, I'm weird.
2016 - Store bought cards are relatively easy, and insured that I was the only heterosexual man to reach Platinum status in Hallmark points in history. Ok, maybe not, but the women at the Hallmark store (and they're all women) were always very surprised. The cards were also expensive. I dropped $1000 easily between cards and postage.
2017 - Nothing, although a few people who'd been very enthusiastic got cards anyway.
2018 - My friendly EmilyT was doing some custom work at a local place where they had printing presses available. She made me custom postcards to send. I wrote a custom haiku for each one of them. The postcards were essentially free (I bought Emily dinner several times), but were larger than standard sized and took first class postage, so I spent maybe $125 total. The haiku were truly exhausting, and it was clear that I couldn't continue. I will say that if you write 200+ haiku you will write a few that are really good by sheer chance.
2019 - M took me to a number of antique stores, where I bought vintage postcards. Most were very cheap, quite a few were very weird, and all were covered by postcard postage, which kept the costs down. I spent maybe $300 total, which was still more expensive than 2018, but both were far, far cheaper than 2016.
2020 - Early in the year I used up some vintage postcards. After that I printed my own postcards using one of M's nature photos. This dramatically reduced the time involved by eliminating the need to write out a return address, and kept it at postcard postage. Total costs will be around $125. I'll probably take a similar approach in future years. Everyone still gets a personal message, typically surreal, so hopefully it's not too impersonal feeling.
Fun fact: in what has to be one of the more remarkable coincidences of my life, there are actually more people on my birthday card list who share my birthday than for any other date of the year. That includes me, my mother and four more friends. No other date has more than four cards.
Age 0 - I arrive on the day after Thanksgiving, which happens to be my mother's birthday. Maybe this is why I like leftovers so much!
Age 6 - This was the first birthday party I had, or at least that I remember having. We lived in Montana at the time, and most of the invitees were kids from our block or kids from my kindergarten class. At this point, I remember almost none of their names besides Brandon, who was my first ever best friend.
Age 10 - My parents didn't throw a birthday party for us every year like some kids got, so the next up was one I had in fourth grade. At a guess, the attendees were probably Josh, Joe, Jason, Derek, Mike... and maybe someone else I've forgotten, although I don't think so. I wasn't friends with Ryan yet, and neither of the Chads nor Lizard (it's a whole story) had moved to my town at that point. I distinctly remember having an indoor snowball fight using paper balls in the then empty living room.
Age 13 - A bar mitzvah isn't really the same as a birthday party, but mine happened to be the weekend of my birthday and there was certainly more food and family than any subsequent party I've had.
That was it for growing up in terms of formal parties. In college and young adulthood I always had birthday plans, but they were rarely formal parties. The only one I remember clearly is my 21st birthday, of course.
Age 21 - My 21st birthday was the day before Thanksgiving, and I was on co-op in Lexington, KY. The relatives I stayed with went out of town somewhere. I was leaving to go back to Cleveland after work. I managed to lock myself out of the house after work, and the locksmith ended up having to drill out the lock and replace it before I could get my keys, which burned a good hour. Then on the drive north there was some of the worst traffic I've ever driven through. The cause of this traffic was not just the usual Thanksgiving traffic, but that a semi had overturned and blocked every single lane. Here's the catch: it wasn't on MY side of the highway. The traffic was caused mostly be people slowing down to gawk! The drive from Lexington to Cincinnati took nearly three hours, or more than double the usual amount. I showed up unannounced at Jenny's (who was jenny31978) house. Her mother, who liked me for some reason, fed me and thus fortified I made it to Cleveland. Of course, by the time I got there, everybody who had planned to go with me got tired of waiting and headed out. In an age before cell phones, I had no way of finding them, and I was exhausted anyways. On the next day, Phil and I went to see Freekbass at the old Peabody's in the Flats. That was the first time I ever saw them. The opening act was a truly terrible local band called "Three Penny Pussy" whose lead lyric was "I wouldn't suck my dick if I were you" and then got worse. Thank goodness for legal alcohol!
Once I got to be an adult, my birthdays started getting substantially more elaborate when I had both money and my own space.
Age 27 - I had a "brunch in the evening" party at my old apartment in Coventry which had quite a few attendees.
Age 28 - I had the first every "chili taste off" party at my old apartment in Coventry. This was less work than brunch. A pattern was born.
Age 32 - In honor of that age 28 party, this was billed as the "2nd Annual Phi Kappa Theta Black Friday Chili Feed / Birthday Party". As the name implies, it was mostly limited to my fraternity brothers. I was trying to tap those people who came back to Cleveland for Thanksgiving, while simultaneously effectively limiting the number of people who attended to something manageable.
Age 34 - Same party, same location, mostly the same guest list.
Age 35 - Same party, same location, mostly the same guest list.
Age 36 - At this point I started calling the party the "annual but not consecutive Black Friday" party. I also opened up the guest list to basically everyone I know because the number of PhiKaps who made it back to Cleveland was shrinking to a tiny amount. Apparently there were 36 or 38 attendees, depending on which resource you reference. Menu here.
Age 37 - Same party, same location, ever expanding guest list.
Age 39 - Same party, same location, ever expanding guest list. 36 attendees; I even have photos.
Age 40 - The weekend prior to my birthday I had a small kid-friendly ice cream party at Malley's. Then on I held the "The 8th Annual But Not Consecutive Black Friday Birthday Party!", which was the last edition of the party held thus far. 37 people attended, most with photographic evidence. on Saturday night, a very small number of people joined me at the local tiki bar. Three parties is not excessive.
Many of the years not listed lacked parties because I was out of town for Thanksgiving (Age 42, for example). Others I just didn't want to do one (Age 41). This year the pandemic obviously precludes any parties.
My favorite thing about Facebook, bar none, is the "it's so and so's birthday" feature. As much as I like wishing people a happy birthday, it seemed a bit impersonal, which combined with my having read how to Win Friends and Influence People probably explains why I started sending 200+ birthday cards a year in 2016. That was expensive, but after one year off in 2017 I figured out how to do it more cost effectively and resumed it for (for good, I hope) in 2018. People seem to really appreciate it, although I can't say it's particularly increased the number of cards *I* get. I'm not sure if people keep their cards. I keep quite a few of the ones I get. Is that weird? Well, I'm weird.
2016 - Store bought cards are relatively easy, and insured that I was the only heterosexual man to reach Platinum status in Hallmark points in history. Ok, maybe not, but the women at the Hallmark store (and they're all women) were always very surprised. The cards were also expensive. I dropped $1000 easily between cards and postage.
2017 - Nothing, although a few people who'd been very enthusiastic got cards anyway.
2018 - My friendly EmilyT was doing some custom work at a local place where they had printing presses available. She made me custom postcards to send. I wrote a custom haiku for each one of them. The postcards were essentially free (I bought Emily dinner several times), but were larger than standard sized and took first class postage, so I spent maybe $125 total. The haiku were truly exhausting, and it was clear that I couldn't continue. I will say that if you write 200+ haiku you will write a few that are really good by sheer chance.
2019 - M took me to a number of antique stores, where I bought vintage postcards. Most were very cheap, quite a few were very weird, and all were covered by postcard postage, which kept the costs down. I spent maybe $300 total, which was still more expensive than 2018, but both were far, far cheaper than 2016.
2020 - Early in the year I used up some vintage postcards. After that I printed my own postcards using one of M's nature photos. This dramatically reduced the time involved by eliminating the need to write out a return address, and kept it at postcard postage. Total costs will be around $125. I'll probably take a similar approach in future years. Everyone still gets a personal message, typically surreal, so hopefully it's not too impersonal feeling.
Fun fact: in what has to be one of the more remarkable coincidences of my life, there are actually more people on my birthday card list who share my birthday than for any other date of the year. That includes me, my mother and four more friends. No other date has more than four cards.