January Birthday Is Cold Comfort To A Kid

“Why does my birthday always have to be when it’s cold, Mom? Can’t I have it in the summer?” I pleaded.

“Well, that’s just the way it is,” she replied. “But thank your lucky stars you have it in the winter because it isn’t so hot and you can go sliding.” I eventually realized that she was definitely not going to have my birthday become a Christmas in July thing. And the parties were held on a school day even if my birthday was on a Saturday. She wanted to get it over with because a Saturday party presented the danger that it could last all day.

I kind of knew I wouldn’t be able to change my January birthday but it was worth a try. My mother, Bea, always had a way of explaining things that made sense even if I didn’t get the answer I wanted. It definitely would not be warm enough to play outside in shorts on my birthday. In fact, it was almost exactly the very coldest time of the year. This year it really was the coldest day. We couldn’t have a party at a park and back in the early 1960s, Red Wing didn’t have good options for holding a kid’s birthday party like a McDonald’s Playland or Chuck E. Cheese. And in January, it still gets dark early.

I shouldn’t complain. Some kids’ birthdays are right around Christmas so get lost in all that madness. By the end of January, Christmas is a long-faded memory and I had many fun birthday parties with lots of friends. The hard part was picking who to invite. I think there were 10 kids at some of the parties. We ran all the way home after squirming in our seats at Colvill School all day. And true to Mom’s word, we did go sliding down the big hill behind our house on East Seventh St. When we came in, the back porch became littered with black buckle boots and Mom and Dad’s bed became “Coat Mountain”. Some kids always went home with mismatched boots which got straightened out at school the next day.

Our house was too small to play games like Pin the Tail on the Donkey but by the time we got in from the cold, it didn’t matter. My friends were tired, hungry and ready to watch me open my birthday presents.

We had the standard hot dogs or sloppy joes, potato chips, and jello. And of course we had the usual Mom-made angel food cake since she was a pro at them and they looked large. Vanilla ice cream and red Kool-Aid helped wash it down. In our family of five kids, we all cleaned our plates. So it bothered me when a few kids didn’t finish their food. We couldn’t quite get 10 kids around the dining room table. I felt bad for the kids who had to sit at a folding table. It was like they were being shunned.

The gifts I received were usually toys that had a lifespan of about a day. I don’t remember any of them in particular. But I do remember that a few kids were so excited about what they gave me that they each wanted to spend an hour showing me how it worked as soon as I opened it.

There also always seemed to be at least one kid who lost his focus on the party and who liked to “touch” things around the house (“Oh, look at this!”).  These kids also wanted to play with my toys or worse, one of my brothers’ toys. So those items were placed out of sight ahead of time. It was because of these situations that Mom coaxed one of the kids’ mothers to help at the parties in exchange for helping at their kid’s parties.

When it was over, some kids were picked up by their parents and my Dad drove the others home. I remember once bringing a couple kids to their farm homes quite a ways out in the country.

I don’t remember what birthday gifts I got from my folks. I’m sure they were things I could use right away rather than a baseball bat. I might have gotten a flying saucer or sled, but these gifts were basically for me and my brothers since we shared most things. Maybe that’s why brothers Dave and Warren were so interested in what I got. And the folks knew that getting something we could share would be the best bang for their buck.

What I secretly wanted was my name read by Casey Jones on his Lunch with Casey show. Kids could send in their names and birthdates and Casey would read them near the end of the show. They played a recording of him singing his famous birthday song before he read the names. Maybe you remember the song. You can hear it on YouTube.

“Happy, happy birthday to every girl and boy.

Hope this very special day brings you lots of joy.

Hope the birthday presents you get from Mom and Dad

Will make this very special day the best you ever had.”

I watched this many times at friends’ homes but I never sent my name in to the show because I was too old when we finally got our TV antenna fixed and I could actually see the show at home.

It would be fun to alternate my birthday with a summer date once in awhile, but a January birthday is cold comfort I’ve learned to warm up to.