I just found out that May 18th was Hunter Woolsman’s birthday. (I snagged this image of Hunter and Lance together from a pic he had on his phone. Hunter is the one in the green smock. I know, two soulless gingers in a single photo? I am actually amazed they even showed up on film...) He turned 18 on the 18th. When I asked him about why he did not say anything, he told me that he didn’t want people making a fuss. Plus, he and his dad always had special birthday rituals going back as far as he could remember. Not strange “let’s sacrifice a goat to Baal” rituals but little things like his dad would always make him blueberry pancakes for breakfast. Hunter got to choose which restaurant they went to that evening. Most of the time, he let him take the day off school. His dad did things to make that day special…But I am reminded of the Seinfeld episode when they talked about birthdays. “It’s a bad day. You’ve got all these people in your house. You’re looking around. You’re thinking, ‘These are my friends?’” Truth be told, I have never really felt comfortable about my birthday either.
I always wanted the day to be special but I didn’t like the idea of people making a fuss over me. I mean my idea of a perfect birthday is a nice but not out of the normal breakfast, not having to do any of my daily chores, and a good dinner, finished off with a romp through the garden of earthly delights… if you know what I am saying.
But often times, a party is not so much for you as it is for the people around you. People love a good party and we missed an opportunity to celebrate a pretty big milestone… especially if you consider that we all might not live to celebrate our own next birthday.
So I think we need to really go all out for people’s birthdays. Not just for them but for everyone. We have a fully functioning bakery with all sorts of decorations for a professional icing. We have everything for great birthday parties. We need to implement that. I need to assign someone to be the official “party planner.”
