Memorial Day

Memorial Day weekend was always and still is a big week end for me. I liked to say it was because I am super patriotic, but the real reason is more personal. My birthday almost always falls on that weekend. Having your birthday on a holiday has its advantages and disadvantages. You are almost guaranteed not to have school that day. I have a personal belief that no one should go to school or work on their birthday. However you do miss out on having birthday cards from friends and birthday parties at school. People tend to forget that it’s your birthday because of the holiday.

In our family the rule was you could have only one birthday party where you could invite all your friends, I think I must have been 7 or 8 when I had mine. It was nothing fancy, we didn’t go to Chuck E. Cheese or anything like that. (of course Chuck E. Cheese didn’t exist at that time). The party was at home, we played pin the tail on the donkey, a game where you try to roll a peanut across the floor, egg on a spoon, and Huckle Buckle Bean Stalk, also known as find the thimble. The egg or potato on the spoon game is an outdoor game. The way I remember it you divide into two or more groups. Half of the group goes to one end of the yard and half to the other. Those groups are again divided into half, so you have at least two groups at each end. You start at one end of the yard with an egg on a tablespoon and at go, you race toward the other end without dropping the egg or potato. If you drop the item you have to go back and start again. Once you reached the other end successfully the next person in line at that end goes. The game continues until everyone is at the opposite end they started at.

One of my favorite indoor game was Huckle Buckle Bean stalk. Huckle Buckle Bean Stalk involves everyone but the hider leaving the room. The hider then hides a small object the size of a thimble somewhere in the room. The object must be visible and can’t be hidden in drawers or another object. Everyone else comes backs in and tries to find the object once the object is found the person yells Huckle Buckle Bean Stalk. The hider can help people by saying you are getting hotter or colder as they get closer or farther away from the object. The way would play it is you would yell huckle buckle bean stalk when you found the object but you wouldn’t touch it. The game would go on until everyone found the object. Those who had found the object could help or hinder those who haven’t. Because I don’t like white or yellow cake I am sure the birthday cake was a homemade chocolate with chocolate icing my mom would make the best chocolate cake ever.

After that when your birthday rolled around it was family only, although you did get to pick what you wanted for dinner, mine was always oven fried chicken, corn on the cob , tomatoes and a home made cherry or blackberry pie. You got to pick the dinner, but not always when it was going to happen. Often my birthday was moved to mid June. My brother was born in April and one year we were camping in Florida on his birthday, so for his birthday cake we had Hostess Cup Cakes with birthday candles. It is the one birthday of his that I remember.

It is funny, we spend a lot of money on presents and parties we give and the people who come to the parties don’t remember these things. What they remember is the great time they had and the people they got together with.