My fifth birthday party. My mom loved to photograph chubby cheeks.
I was lucky enough to live in a safe, kid-friendly neighborhood with lots of adventures, barbecues, and Tupperware® parties. I rode my bike around the block, or even just back and forth around the corner because I thought it was a super awesome time. I played hopscotch on the front sidewalk. I jumped into huge piles of autumn leaves. When my family played hide and seek, Dad hoisted me high inside the closet door in my bedroom where nobody would find me. My dad told us that “Queen Marinette” was buried in our backyard, and we believed him. The Avon lady visited Mom, and I’d get to experiment with teeny-tiny lipstick samples. We set up tin flower-patterned TV trays so we could eat “boil-in bags” meat and gravy poured over toast. When my dad joined us for baseball games in the lot behind the house, he would hit the ball so hard that it flew over the Sacred Heart Church steeple. We would all scream in delight and go chasing after the ball one street over.
We had good babysitters who went to the Catholic high school. They were sisters who wore cool corduroy pants that made a whooshing sound when they walked. I’d wished I had corduroy pants.
My mom was asked to be on the judging committee for cheerleader tryouts at the Catholic high school. I got to tag along. Mom sat down and looked at the paperwork; each girl had a scoring sheet. Before anyone even began auditioning she circled “fives” across the board for each girl in appearance category. Five was the highest score possible. Parents, your actions do get noticed by your kids.
Some teenage girls in the neighborhood put on a little performance of songs from “Grease” in their garage. My mom and I went; I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. I wanted to be those girls. Everybody loved “Grease.” A few years later when the video disc player came out (the predecessor to the VCR), that was the first movie we watched “on demand” in our house. We were so excited that when it was done Dad put the disc back in and declared it was a “double feature”! And then we all cheered and watched the movie again.
My parents often went out to a restaurant called The Flying Dutchman. After what seemed like years of talking about this supper club, one night they decided to take us kids. They had us convinced that an actual little flying man – the flying Dutchman – would soar around the restaurant. As we opened the door to the place, my dad yelled out, “Watch out!” and ducked his head. We all ducked our heads.
My best friend was Danny Miller. He was diabetic and ate Fig Newtons and drank Fresca. When we knew our playtime was up, we’d run away down the block and hide from our moms. They would call our names for about five minutes until we didn’t know what to do anymore; we gave up and reluctantly went back home.
My brothers wore pants from J.C. Penney and Sears, and inevitably they would wear holes in the knees. My mom would iron patches over the holes and draw faces on the patches.
My brothers hung out with their friend Ricky a lot. They all played baseball and got to meet some of the Milwaukee Brewers team from the 1982 World Series. Dan and Ricky would pretend to be announcers on a radio station; they would record themselves onto blank tapes. Ricky would be Howard Cosell, and Dan would be some athlete he was interviewing. Other times they would pretend to be radio deejays, and they would record voiceovers. One time I tried to be a deejay, too, but they laughed at me because I pronounced the band ELO like it rhymed with yellow.
My fifth birthday party was for boys and girls, and everybody dressed up. I had a homemade cake with pink frosting. We played classic games like pin the tail on the donkey and the clothespin drop. Everyone sat and behaved nicely as I opened up my presents, and everyone sat around the kitchen table for cake and ice cream. All birthday parties were like this; they didn’t cost a lot of money, and party favors and treat bags weren’t invented yet, but everyone still had a fantastic time.
We usually made our Halloween costumes. Dan wore a brown sweater, brown corduroys and a wolf mask. He was Chewbacca. Peter wore some sort of white sheet-like outfit and drew on it with black markers. He was a stormtrooper. I wore a blue cape with sparkles on it, a tinfoil halo, and rosy cheeks from my mom’s creamy Avon blusher. I was an angel.
I wouldn’t change anything.
