Reminiscence: Landmark Birthdays

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1

On my 10th birthday, my parents gave me a puppy. 

That afternoon they mysteriously directed me to go out into the front yard.  An unfamiliar car drove up, and a stranger carrying a puppy - six months old or so, we learned later - came up across the yard smiling broadly... and handed me the puppy!

Mom and Dad had appeared behind me by then, and Dad explained that the dog was my birthday present.

He was half-collie and half-chow, a pretty reddish brown color, with white feet, a white tip on his tail, and a white streak down the highest part of his nose.  We named him Sox because of his paws.  (Years later, I came to understand that when they were first married, my parents had owned a cat with white feet whom they called "Boots.")

It was 16 years later when I was in grad school in California that my five-year-old niece telephoned from the family home in Texas to tell me excitedly that poor old Sox had finally died.  She was excited because she and my parents had buried him in the backyard, apparently with appropriate pomp and circumstance.

2

I don't actually recall my 20th.  I was a sophomore in my Midwestern state university.

On my 21st birthday, though, it is impossible not to remember that I rented four cars.  Yes, four.  It was February of my junior year in Paris.  My JYA group had lunch together every weekday.  One day as the break between semesters approached - which happened to coincide with Mardi Gras - we were all discussing where we would go during the one-week break.  Several were concerned about the costs and inconvenience of relying on public transportation.  Three of the women and I were talking in particular about traveling together to Spain.  Someone else reported that in order to rent a car (at American Express) one had to be at least 21 years old.  No one in the group seemed to be 21 yet.

My own birthday was to come about a week before the vacation began, as I pointed out.  That settled it for my own travel group; we would rent a little car.  Fine.  Soon, one by one, various others who were hoping to travel in different directions came to me to request that I rent a car for them to use.  One group was headed to Germany, one to Italy, and one to Belgium and Holland.  The first who approached me was my friend "Frank," and I said I would if he would accompany me to the rental office at the American Express building and help me through the bureaucracy, which we anticipated to be complicated.

So, on the day itself when I turned 21 - as indicated in my passport - I rented the four cars.

Everything went fine.  No one had an accident.  All the cars returned on time in good shape. 

In my own case, only one unexpected event occurred.  I was to pick up our Spain-headed group's car in early afternoon the day before we were planning to leave.  I was very concerned about driving in the heavy, unpredictable Paris traffic.  My plan was to head to the mouth of the road to Madrid and park near a Metro stop.  All of us would take the Metro to that spot early the next morning so that we could be on our way directly and without my having to face much city traffic.

With that plan fully scoped out, I still had one serious concern: the address where each car was to be picked up was near the Arc de Triomphe.  Traffic around the circle at the arch was the most terrifying in the city, as far as I could tell.  Everyone drove fast, sometimes with five cars side by side.  And, oh, by the way, there were no lanes marked; you drove wherever there seemed to be room for you.  Counter-intuitively as well, the cars coming into the circle "had priority," as they said in France.  They had the right of way, and if they darted out in front of one of the cars speeding around the circle so there was an accident, it was presumed to be the fault of the driver of the circling car.

I knew all this because I often negotiated pedestrian crossings near the arch, since my JYA headquarters was only two blocks away.  The thought of trying to negotiate a car through all that chaos... well, I was determined to avoid that at any cost.

To that end, I studied my detailed Paris street map carefully.  I memorized the names of all the streets and just how they were related to each other.  I planned that I would drive out from the address where I was to pick up the car and turn right - in the opposite direction from the arch circle - even though that direction was nowhere near the straight line one might draw on the map from the rental address to the destination Metro stop.

I would proceed a certain number of blocks, crossing the Champs-Elysees several blocks south of the arch, go on quite a ways straight ahead to one particular intersection where I would turn north and, after an even longer stretch, I would arrive at the road to Madrid where I could turn left and proceed a couple of blocks to the rendezvous. 

Complicated, inefficient, but perfect!  I figured it would take 30 to 45 minutes.  (If I were just to head straight from the rental address to the highway by going through the arch circle, it might take 15 minutes...)

That afternoon, the paperwork at the car pick-up office was far more complicated than the original rental papers had been at American Express.  I couldn't help but get a little impatient, so when the man waiting on me started leading me to the auto itself up and down and around, all underground, I barely noticed that we had gone several buildings over.  I didn't know where we were, of course.

But we found the car, a Simca 1000.  It looked fine, small, yellow.  It started, so the monsieur who'd given me the keys pointed out what direction to take to exit the garage and said turn left when I reached the street outside.  It was sens unique, i.e. one way.  But since I didn't know what street it was, that didn't bother me... yet.

I drove where he had said and turned left.  One block and I had nowhere to go but into the Arc de Triomphe circle!

There was nothing for it but to grit my teeth, accelerate into the fast-moving traffic, and head two-thirds of the way around the circle, exiting onto the road to Madrid.  I more or less just said to myself that everyone else would just get out of my way.

They did, and ten minutes later, I was headed down into the Metro after having found a parking spot on the street right where I'd planned.

3

To many Americans, the 21st birthday is the big one.  For my generation the even bigger one was the 30th.  That was the time in history when everyone knew "Don't trust anyone over 30."  In other words, at one second past midnight on my birthday, I was going to move from being a cool young dude to being a reactionary, selfish and intolerant bastard.  We didn't look forward to our 30th birthdays in the '70s.

"A-----" and I had married by that time.  We were both working, avant les enfants, in our nation's capital, living in Bethesda.  We had some pretty good friends, whom we knew from my job: two other couples who with us had developed the custom of getting together one evening now and then to play board games or maybe charades, have some snacks and some wine or beer, and enjoy each other's witty and lively company for two or three hours.

I was the first to hit the big 3-0, and "A-----" invited the others to join us at our apartment that evening for my birthday party.  They came, and we had a good time.  I can't remember for sure, but that may have been the time that "A-----" and I had gone to Toys Are Us in search of a new game, and had come home with a toy roulette wheel and a lot of poker chips.  We had a lot of fun horsing around with that.  One couple gave me a book that I still have, with the inscription:  "To 'Derrick,' on his thirtieth year to heaven."

4

Frankly, I don't remember my 40th birthday at all.  I'm sure that the family had a little, appropriate celebration, the children being 5 and 3 years old.  There would have been cake and maybe ice cream, a nice card - perhaps home-made - and a suitable, modest present...  Nice, but unremarkable, I would imagine.

I do remember one thing: thinking, "At last I'm an adult."

5

Now, my 50th birthday - that was rather different.

For one thing, it was at work.  The workplace at that time was torn by controversy and strife.  Times were hard for us, and on top of it all, there was a heartfelt labor-management dispute.  On the Friday before my birthday, my assistant - a non-nonsense young woman ("P-----") - was waiting, grim-faced, in my office when I returned from a meeting across the hall.

"You gotta see this," she said.  When I asked what it was, she repeated: "No, first you should see it yourself."

The tension had been high enough that, besides sending nasty letters to the editor of the local newspaper, the employee hot-heads (a small minority) had taken to pasting hostile signs on light-poles and outside doors.  I was thinking that was the kind of thing I "had to see" at that point.

As we left the office, "P-----" suggested we go out through the big lounge upstairs, so that we might reach the site of the supposed outrage without being seen.  She stepped aside when we arrived at the door to the lounge.  I pushed the door open.

The place was packed with thirty or 40 colleagues, including some of the employees who reported to me.  They shouted gaily, "Surprise!"

Now, I don't like to be surprised.  Maybe especially for a party.  But this was an exception.  "A---" was there, with our two children, now 15 and 13.  I was presented with a big card everyone had signed, and two presents: a six-pack of my favorite imported beer and a Louisville Slugger with the signature of "Byron Derrick" on it.  I suppose the beer lasted a couple of weeks at our house, and the baseball bat was prominently displayed in my office until I retired at 66.

The company photographer was happily snapping away.  The expression on my face as I first opened the door was particularly rich.

6

By the time I turned 60, the children were on their own so that "A-----" and I were living by ourselves again.  My birthday was unremarkable, so far as I recall, as I expect all future ones to be. 

As far as age is concerned, I seem to have already passed all the landmarks... Or should I look forward to my 100th?

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