This morning, in the darkness of a hotel room, the eight year old creeps searching for whoever's awake. She's turned eight only hours earlier and is in desperate need of someone to celebrate the fact with her. Her mother's asleep or pretending to be asleep so the first birthday wish of her day come from me, lying there in bed.
"Happy Birthday Laurel," I said with my hair askew, wondering where I'd thrown my shorts.
This seems to immensley please her so she goes back to bed ... which is good because it gives me the opportunity to find wherever I'd thrown clothes.
There are people who celebrate birthdays and there are those who don't.
For the most part, I've been the later. Birthdays came and went and I never gave them much thought. It's just another day.
When I turned 50 though the staff at Union Mission threw me a tremendous celebration in the park on Tybee. It was the most intergrated event Tybee has ever witnessed. My dear friends Carlos and Verna came from St. Martin and we danced the night away. Paul and Nancy came from Canada and of course, Conner and Hania showed and we all did a naked takeover of a sad little holy dock.
After that, a lot of things went wrong. Finding myself suddenly single, the topic of intense controversy in the newspapers, and beginning my career break, the last thing I cared about was my birthday.
But I have this Carnival of Friends, and these other friends who came back from the dead after graduating from college back when dinasours ruled the world, and the Tybee Community decided to throw this birthday party to end all parties. Under the tight supervision of cruise director Cheryl Sadowski with the amble support of her sidekicks Dedra Shuman and Judy O'Neill ... well ... Hoo Ha was there a party.
The Sam Adams Band, who play damn good live music on Tybee, played. The reclusive Mitch Wesley showed up and played bass. Sandi Postle did a killer version of the Beatles, "If I Fell" which almost killed her. Johhny O did his famous and rarely preformed song Booger. The whole thing ended up with naked people in a swimming pool.
It changed the way that I look at birthday parties!
I am all for them now.
After finding my shorts, I retrieve Laurel and we go out for doughnuts. Everyone's awake when we return with presents.
She goes on an on ... and on and on ... and on and on ... about this being her birthday.
"It's my special day," she exclaims with a mouth full of chocolate covered doughnut, wearing sunglasses with the top down on the car, on A1A. The morning sun drips blue skies all over her hair.
"Yeah," I reply laughing at her. "What else you want?"
She thinks for a nano-second before replying, "To go to a restaurant where they sing Happy Birthday to me.
OK then.
Next up on the birthday list is Kristen whose already called. Then Sarah. Then Chelsea followed by me and then Jeremy.
There's a lot of parties to get ready for.
