Howard Is Eighty

Well, not yet.

On May 7th, my father will celebrate his eightieth birthday. And I'm planning a surprise birthday part for him. It should be pretty cool. My brother and his wife are coming up from Florida and will make a surprise visit. I've called all the folks from his senior citizens group, neighbors, friends who live in the area, and they'll all be coming by here around 4 pm.

Thus far, the preparation has involved a lot of phone conversations with elderly people. Who just talk and talk and talk and talk. On and on. Blah blah blah blah blah. "Oh I haven't seen you since you were seven years old! Now I guess you would have been seven... Let's see now, when Jane your mother died... Oh she was a wonderful woman, I guess you never knew her really, why I remember once she..."

Although there was one interesting thing that came to light. Apparently, my mother, who died from cancer when I was three and a half, would tell me that she wouldn't be around to raise me. Things like, "Now I want you to finish all your peas, so you'll grow up big and strong, because after all, I'm not going to be around to see that."

Uh huh.

That's interesting on several levels.

For one thing, the long-time therapy goer in me wonders if that might have sewn the seeds for all kinds of abandonment issues. Or whatever.

For another, my parents made the decision not to let my brother and sister (fifteen and thirteen years my senior respectively) know that my mother was dying. They were just told that mother was "sick." My brother said he figured it out, but my sister didn't. Therefore, my mother's death was a huge shock to them. This lead to a sort of movie-made-for-television situation whereby in the last conversation that my sister had with my mother, my mother told her that she was a tramp and an embarrassment. And in the last conversation my brother had with my mother, she told him that no good son would disgrace his family by being a homosexual. And then, y'know, she up and died.

Traumatizing, no?

My sister ran away from home to go and live with a rock band on a commune (this was 1969), and my brother started this odd process of doing a census of the little village of our train set. He would spend hours down in the basement where it was set up, scrupulously recording the deaths and births and weddings and divorces of the imaginary families who lived in the little plastic houses served by the Lionel Train that whizzed around in an endless circle through their neighborhood. And once a week, every Saturday, he would clean his room, a process that involved taking every stick of furniture out of the room and stacking it up in the hallway, then vacuuming and sweeping and scrubbing, and then thoroughly cleaning the bed and dresser and chair and carpet and nightstand as he replaced them.

My father imported his parents to come and look after me. And my Nana and Pop proceeded to do their best to Spoil Me Rotten.

And most of these people that I'm inviting to the party haven't seen me since this wacky wacky period.

And here I am, all grown up, living here again, and serving up shrimp cocktail and pigs-in-blankets for them. (I want the party to have a sort of Early Seventies feel to it so I'm planning the hors d'oeuvres accordingly. Desert is gonna be jello cubes topped with a dollop of Cool-Whip®.)

And, I've got a hell of a lot of work to do in getting the house cleaned up. And, the yard. I'm worried that the "Shucks, We're Just Two Guys Batchin' It Here And We're Not Much Good With Housework" schtick will only cover so many sins.

Oh. Listen up. Here's where you come in, Dear Reader...

Y'see, my father loves to get mail. When someone sends him a postcard, I hear about it for the next three weeks. And birthday cards are just the greatest thing ever.

So I know it's a pain in the butt and all, and I know you've never met the man (and possibly never met me), but would you do me a favor and send a birthday card to my father?

My inclination would be to just post our mailing address here. Perhaps I'm being overly cautious, but this is the World Wide Internet afterall, and Lord knows what kind of viscious psychopaths might be lurking out there. (And if you're a single viscious psychopath who appreciates... Well, I'll save that for another time.) But I guess I ought to vet you all.

So we'll work it this way.

Step One: Send me an email to krrrush(at)mac.com (that's three r's in krrrush) and put "I Am Not A Viscious Psychopath, I Swear!" in the subject line.
Step Two: Wait for me to send you our mailing address by return email.
Step Three: On your next trip to the supermarket or the drug store, pick up a birthday card appropriate for an eighty year old man. Note that my father is heterosexual. So if you want to send one of those Zany Wacky Sexy cards with messages like, "I hope you have a Hot Time on your birthday!!!" that's fine, but make sure it's a scantily clad female rather than a male that's featured. We're serving cheesecake, not beefcake.
Step Four: Inscribe "Happy Birthday, Howard!" with the writing implement of your choice. Maybe adding something like "I understand that you hate it when your son goes away for the weekend, but I hope you appreciate how much I like to have him come visit, and after all, he is a forty year old man" or whatever.
Step Five: Slap a stamp on the envelope, write out the address, and drop it in the nearest mailbox.

I see a hand in the back. Is there a question?

"Uh yeah... Could I send an email bearing birthday greetings to your father?"

No. No that wouldn't work. You see, my father refers to my trusty laptop as "That Thing Of Yours" and is forever peppering me with questions about How Do Movies Get On That Thing Of Yours and How Much Does It Cost When You Send A Letter To Someone From That Thing Of Yours and Do You Have Problems With Getting A Lot Of Spiced Ham On That Thing Of Yours (investigation here revealed that my father had seen something on the news about "Spam." We're talking about a man who has never used an ATM card. Email would not be appropriate in this situation.

Oh. And Step Six: Earn my undying gratitude!

T'anks!

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