Boys Will Be Boys

Few things achieve immortality in the family collective than the honest eagerness of a rambunctious, though helpful, young boy. 

I can't say that I remember the gala affair that was my fifth birthday party, but I'll always remember the events leading up to the actual party that almost wasn't.  And that's especially important because these days I can hardly remember what happened last week.  To be honest, much of what follows was told to me by Mom some years later.  While I suspect some of the facts have been embellished with the re-telling, I have no doubt as to the overall authenticity of this tale.

I do remember the excitement I felt about my forthcoming fifth birthday.  I would be able to hold up my hand with all five digits extended to show my age.  I'd be a big boy.

It was San Antonio, Texas, in the summer of '59.  I'd moved there at the tender young age of three.  Dad was in the Air Force, and my job was to provide homey humor for his trying job.  It was a task I embraced with every fiber of my being.  I played hard, and scrapes came to me like fire ants to anything passing by.

Mom was hanging the wash out to dry on the morning of my birthday when she noticed our next door neighbor looking at her lovely flower garden facing our house.  I wandered over to play while Mom talked with Ms. Clara.  I caught only snippets of their conversation. 

"I don't know why I planted these flowers.  They're not looking like I'd hoped. I wish I'd never planted them."

That last thing came through loud and clear.  It wasn't long before they finished talking and went inside.  I went to work pulling up every flower Ms. Clara had planted.

Apparently pulling up flower plants wasn't an easy thing for a five-year-old.  Of course, it was a large garden, extending along the entire side of Ms. Clara's house.  My best friends, Johnny and Hector, showed up some time during my project and helped me pull the last of them and place them in a big pile.  Mom later told me she'd spent about an hour putting the house in order for my party when she came out and saw us standing over this huge pile of brightly colored petals, broken stems and roots, our hands and clothes caked with mud from the sweat dripping off us.

She screamed out my full name--nothing short of the sentence of death--bringing Ms. Clara out of her house.  My friends and I were frozen to the ground.  A broken beehive wouldn't have tempted us to move.

Ms. Clara stared at our pile unable to speak for several minutes.  I just knew she was thinking about what kind of punishment we would be getting.  I looked at Johnny and Hector certain that our lives as we knew them were over.  We just held our breath.

Mom watched her friend as Ms. Clara stared at each of us in turn ... and then burst out laughing!  Mom joined in, and we exhaled before we collapsed.  I'd thought sure I'd never see another birthday.

Ms. Clara even gave me a whole dollar for my birthday.  It was the most money I'd ever ... uh, earned.  I smiled.

Then Mom took me inside and scrubbed me pink to get me ready for my party.

Word Count:  570