Notes from Maine - 2024/03/31
When I was a kid, Mom threw me some epic birthday parties. Classmates came over after school one year and we were stopped at the door, unable to enter. We found popsicle sticks with our names on them affixed to the doorframe, and each one was attached to a string. The strings stretched all through the living room, draped around furniture and light fixtures. Soon the house was full of kids winding strings around their sticks, climbing over each other and making their way through every corner of the house. I found the end of my string downstairs in the workshop. At the end of each string was a bag of toys and candy.
I went to plenty of birthday parties for my friends. Nobody else’s mom put that much time and effort into a party. It was always games and cake, but no adventure. As I sit here and remember that time, I’m sad that I didn’t relay that story to my friend Chip. He absolutely loves to put on a big spectacle and he would have done that string idea for one of his girls. They’re teenagers now—too old for fun things I imagine.
About twenty years ago, Mom called me and told me to get a bouncy house for my sister. You might imagine my confusion. My sister must have been in her late thirties at the time.
“A bouncy house?”
“You know, one of those inflatable castle things,” she told me.
My sister and mother were doing a charity bike ride when they passed by a bouncy castle thing and my sister happened to mention that she had never been in one. It became Mom’s mission (through me) to fill that void. I handed the reins to Chip and we had our first carnival here. It had a bouncy castle, dunk tank, water slide, and all kinds of fun activities. While my sister was visiting her college friend in the morning, a swarm of volunteers descended on the pasture and turned it into a circus. When my sister returned, she found a massive surprise party in her honor. Through the years we’ve had a number of carnivals here. I hope there are kids out there in the world who remember this house as a magical place where absurd parties happened for no reason. You could feed cotton candy to horses and watch “adults”climb on top of an inflatable bouncy castle and then turn the fans back on to see if it could lift them.
During one of the carnivals I was in the middle of turning fifty pounds of potatoes into kettle-cooked french fries when my nephew asked a question. He was just a little guy at the time and he wanted to know if he could go back to the “fish pond” and get another toy. The fish pond idea dates back to my grandmother’s fair. Back then, my grandmother was a vital part of the Kennebec Valley Mother’s Club. Every summer they had a fair where they would sell cookies, raffle homemade quilts and rugs, and raise money for the school library or a local charity. One of my grandfather’s contributions to the fair was he would set up a fish pond that he had built. It was a square box about the size of wishing well. At the bottom, they would scatter small tissue-wrapped toys that had pipe cleaner loops at the top. For five cents, a kid would get a “fishing pole” that consisted of a stick with a string on the end. The hook was a bent paper clip and each kid could fish until they hooked one of the prizes. I “improved” on the idea by waterproofing the pond and adding a circulator so the prizes would swirl in slow circles.
When my nephew wanted to fish for another toy, I should have immediately said, “Yes—there are no rules here. You get as many toys as you like.”
Instead, I said, “Make sure other kids have a chance to get one first. Then you can go back.”
I still feel bad about that. I stole some of the magic away from the day and put a karmic burden on him to try to ensure that world becomes a fair place. That wasn’t his job that day. Here’s an even better answer—“Ride the water slide four times and then bounce in the castle until you’re out of breath, then you can go fishing again.”
I hope he forgives me for my lousy answer. I’ll ask him later, but he’s a teenager now. I don’t think I’ll get a measured response to the question.
That first carnival was a surprise and my sister handled it very well.
I’m not good with surprises.
One spring a friend came to visit me. The house was always full of people back then, so it wasn’t unusual to wake up and find a bunch of friends in the living room. But I was irritated by what they were doing. They had pulled out the entertainment console from the wall and they were mucking around with the wires. All those devices were set up precisely how I wanted them and it hadn’t been an easy process. I began to give them a piece of my mind and they assured me that it would all go back the way it should be. With storm clouds brewing over my head I scowled and went on with my morning. Then, they wanted to go out to brunch or something. I said no. As I was cajoled, I only grew angrier. Finally, because my friend was in from out of town, I relented and we went out.
Then, at the venue, they pulled into a parking spot far away from the brunch place even though there were plenty of good spots closer. You can imagine my mood. I never had even the slightest clue what was happening. I was just grumpy and mean. By that point, I had even forgotten that it was my birthday. Instead of brunch they pushed me into the tiny movie theater that’s downtown in Brunswick. They had rented it out to throw me a surprise party. Hooked up to the projector was the video game console that they had pulled out from the entertainment center that morning. We got to do karaoke on the big screen while we had popcorn and I opened presents. When I think back on that day, most of what I remember is how much of a jerk I was, fighting them at every turn.
As I write this, I’m detecting a pattern—I’m not good at parties. I say and do the wrong thing. Maybe I’m getting better at it, but maybe I should just avoid surprises.
Mom is having her big Easter Egg Hunt today. One year I flew down and surprised her with a visit. This year I’m too busy with dogs, horses, and mud up to my eyeballs. Because of all the flooding, I got a note the other day that said my area was eligible for FEMA disaster relief funds. When I first saw the note, I misread it and thought they were saying that my life was a disaster. For a moment, I took offense. Aside from my kitchen and the general disorder of my house, I think my life is going okay. I certainly wouldn’t call it a disaster. Although if I can get federal funds, I might be willing to play up the victim card a little. Maybe I’ll tell them how poorly I reacted to that surprise party decades ago. My friends forgave me, but my attitude that morning was pretty much a natural disaster.
