When I Was a Kid Department

When I was a kid, a birthday party lasted about two hours in the living room or out on the front porch. Six or eight kids of the same gender were invited and they came—clean—with a gift. Some games were played. At a boy’s party, horseplay and goofing off always erupted.

In my own case, I opened my six presents and thanked everyone the way polite little boys always do. Then we all fell into more horseplay until we heard “Cake and ice cream.” As soon as we ate the (homemade) cake and (hand-cranked) ice cream we lined up for one group picture taken with a Kodak Brownie camera. Then off to a free-for-all wrestling match out on the grass. That lasted till my mom yelled, “Okay, boys. The party’s over. Time for everyone to go home.” So they all got on their bikes and rode themselves home.

“Did you have a nice time, honey?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Would you like another piece of cake? There was a little bit left over.”

“Yeah, sure! That was your best cake ever, Mom.”

Not long ago there was a birthday party for one of our grandkids. My First Wife Chancie and I attended. I’m all for wild parties and delicious goodies, but I think…well, times have changed.

First, “Miss Mommy” scheduled the date a few months in advance and sent out RSVP invitations and RSVP e-mail notices.

Dad rented an indoor amusement park. There are countless video games, bumper cars, electronic games of chance, water slides, circus acts, strolling clowns and magicians, futuristic outer space rooms, scary jungle rooms, fantasy rooms, cages where people shoot colorful balls at each other, cages with dangerous climbing apparatus, monsters-on-call, Outback adventure rooms. Even a room—a room, mind you—with a sandy beach and wavy water!

There are thousands of stuffed animals to win! win! win! Music is piped through ceiling speakers that are only 4 feet apart in every direction. YOU CANNOT HEAR YOURSELF YELL AT THE KIDS! The speakers play AC/DC music. The AC/DC lawyer has called the building managers and asked them to tone it down a little.

Dotted among all these rooms are eating stations of every ilk, all with the same menu: Sugar and Deluxe Sugar with flavored syrup. Only thirty minutes to wait in line and order.

Upstairs there are rooms and rooms and rooms and even more rooms for—you guessed it—birthday parties. There must have been twenty of them going on under all that piped in music.

Today’s kids give sixty-five dollar gifts and ten dollar cards to the birthday boy or girl.

“Mom,” the boy whispered. “I got one of these CDs the other day. I know how much it cost.”

“I know, honey,” Mom whispered back. “Don’t say anything. Her daddy got downsized, so they’re budgeting.”

“Yeah, but I got her a…”

“I said ‘Don’t say anything’,” Mom said out of the side of her mouth.

Just then the caterer arrived with a large, supreme pizza—for each child.

Each child took a couple of small bites and a sip of Supah-Sugah Cola, then began drifting toward their respective parents.

The parents, by the way, spent the whole time flashing digital cameras and videoing the whole affair. “Everybody look this way. Come on, smile!” “Did you get it?” “Wait, lemme do that over.”

The six-hour rental time was up; it was time to leave. “Wait! Wait! Before you go,” Miss Mommy yelled, “I have a ‘Thank-you-for-coming’ gift for every one. “

“You better!” some kid said.

Dad leaned into Mommy’s ear and said, “There are only 40 gifts here. We’ve got 52 kids.”

“Well, we’ll just have to get some more and FedEx them,” Mommy replied out of the side of her mouth.

“How much did these little things cost?” Dad asked.

“Twenty-six dollars each—on sale.”

“That’s not bad. What are they?”

Back at their house that night, Miss Mommy asked, “Did you have a nice time, honey?”

“Yeah, I guess,” replied the birthday boy.

“Would you like another piece of cake? There was a whole bunch left over.”

“Yuk! That was the worst cake ever. Don’t buy that kind anymore. And anyway, I’ll just get some more tomorrow at that other kid’s party.”

Well, I couldn’t take it anymore. I timidly spoke up. “Do you mind if I ask how much that birthday party cost?”

“Uh, we maxed out both of our platinum cards…”

So I came up with a brilliant idea..

Make and distribute a Birthday Club list of all the kids in your “circle of friends.”

Make all birthday gifts a one hundred dollar bill.

Take a hundred dollars to the first January kid. No card, just the money. That January kid, in turn, will take one of the bills to the next party on the list, and then another bill to the next party and so on. There will be enough hundred dollar bills to go around and around and around for years to come.

Make “Fresh Air” the theme of all birthday parties. That means everyone meets in a (free) city park among real trees, on honest-to-goodness grass—or in your own back yard. Encourage the children to venture more than ten feet away from “Miss Mommy” and assure them that the trees will not fall on them.

An alternate theme: “Outdoor games,” featuring kickball, tag, croquet, jump rope, hop-scotch, Frisbee toss, Hacky-sack—that sort of stuff.

You may want to tell the kids about squirrels and the quiet sound of gentle breezes, but try not to frighten them and ruin the party.