The following descriptions of events are mostly derived from black & white home movies, photographs and testimonial through the years from those in attendance. They are not, of course, direct memories on my part, but I feel they accurately reflect real events of the occasion which occurred on or around my first birthday.
"Happy Birthday To You, Happy Birthday To You, Happy Birthday dear Michael, Happy Birthday To You!", the group of adults sang.
In response, I cried.
My father, a thin man in his twenties, dressed in a suit and thin black tie uses his keys to entertain me and get me to stop crying.
My mother, in a white sleeveless blouse and grey skirt poses for the movie camera my godfather is operating. She poses and blows a kiss into the camera. Off camera, she reaches for her frosted old-fashioned glass filled with a 7&7 and takes a drag on her Lucky Strike.
Dad makes his way to the Westinghouse refrigerator and pulls out a cold bottle of Narragansett beer for my mother's only uncle, Emile. His wife Connie calls out, "Paul, I'll have a Seagram's and ginger highball, please." Folks are still polite with one another as my parents have only been married for 19 months. The stigma of that fact has long since worn away. (You do the math.)
My father's younger sisters, Leona and Ruth, mug for the camera and jokingly pretend to be Marilyn Monroe-esque movie stars. They are 21 and 17 respectively.
Grandma Rita shyly shoos the camera away, holding up her white gloved hands and shaking her head covered with a feathery hat. Blanche sits next to her on the turquoise-colored couch, also self-conscious of the movie camera. She hides her pale face blemished by the persistent dark circles under her eyes.
The other grandma, the one who would be known as Memere, sits quietly in the corner of the room, only occasionally engaging in conversation. She's not the social type. She prefers to watch and perhaps judge the goings on around her through her rhinestone-bejeweled cat's eye glasses.
Somehow, someone gets the idea it would be hilarious to put a toilet seat around my neck. The group finds this outrageous. The scene of my screaming and crying at this indignity is filmed for posterity. There is some concern, captured on film, as attempts to remove the odd device from me are made but are met with obstacles...namely, my head. The hilarity and laughing ensues for the drinking party goers, except for the birthday boy. He continues to cry his head off.
Finally the toilet seat is cut away from my head after my screaming becomes unbearable. The seat is a kiddie potty seat so it cuts away with a sharp kitchen knife. Did the knife come close to my neck? Perhaps.
Now it's time for the chocolate frosted cake to be presented to the toddler. After the candle is blown out by the father, the cake is cut up and a big piece is reserved for me. It's destination, timed for maximum camera time: straight into my face. The idea is I would revel in the decadent euphoria of a massive amount of gooey, sweet chocolate cake smeared across my face as I scooped at it with my little hands and gleefully gobbled it up.
It didn't work out that way.
I cried even harder than before and screamed out to the aloof, uneducated crowd, gathered at a baby's first birthday in a little house in Franklin, Massachusetts: "You people are fucking losers!"
But like Stewie, no one heard me. They just continued to laugh.
"Happy Birthday To You, Happy Birthday To You, Happy Birthday dear Michael, Happy Birthday To You!", the group of adults sang.
In response, I cried.
My father, a thin man in his twenties, dressed in a suit and thin black tie uses his keys to entertain me and get me to stop crying.
My mother, in a white sleeveless blouse and grey skirt poses for the movie camera my godfather is operating. She poses and blows a kiss into the camera. Off camera, she reaches for her frosted old-fashioned glass filled with a 7&7 and takes a drag on her Lucky Strike.
Dad makes his way to the Westinghouse refrigerator and pulls out a cold bottle of Narragansett beer for my mother's only uncle, Emile. His wife Connie calls out, "Paul, I'll have a Seagram's and ginger highball, please." Folks are still polite with one another as my parents have only been married for 19 months. The stigma of that fact has long since worn away. (You do the math.)
My father's younger sisters, Leona and Ruth, mug for the camera and jokingly pretend to be Marilyn Monroe-esque movie stars. They are 21 and 17 respectively.
Grandma Rita shyly shoos the camera away, holding up her white gloved hands and shaking her head covered with a feathery hat. Blanche sits next to her on the turquoise-colored couch, also self-conscious of the movie camera. She hides her pale face blemished by the persistent dark circles under her eyes.
The other grandma, the one who would be known as Memere, sits quietly in the corner of the room, only occasionally engaging in conversation. She's not the social type. She prefers to watch and perhaps judge the goings on around her through her rhinestone-bejeweled cat's eye glasses.
Somehow, someone gets the idea it would be hilarious to put a toilet seat around my neck. The group finds this outrageous. The scene of my screaming and crying at this indignity is filmed for posterity. There is some concern, captured on film, as attempts to remove the odd device from me are made but are met with obstacles...namely, my head. The hilarity and laughing ensues for the drinking party goers, except for the birthday boy. He continues to cry his head off.
Finally the toilet seat is cut away from my head after my screaming becomes unbearable. The seat is a kiddie potty seat so it cuts away with a sharp kitchen knife. Did the knife come close to my neck? Perhaps.
Now it's time for the chocolate frosted cake to be presented to the toddler. After the candle is blown out by the father, the cake is cut up and a big piece is reserved for me. It's destination, timed for maximum camera time: straight into my face. The idea is I would revel in the decadent euphoria of a massive amount of gooey, sweet chocolate cake smeared across my face as I scooped at it with my little hands and gleefully gobbled it up.
It didn't work out that way.
I cried even harder than before and screamed out to the aloof, uneducated crowd, gathered at a baby's first birthday in a little house in Franklin, Massachusetts: "You people are fucking losers!"
But like Stewie, no one heard me. They just continued to laugh.