August 23, 2021
The Birthday Card
My friend Marcy, who is a doctor, told me that reading on a kindle or an an iPad before going to bed really messes with your circadian rhythms so, a few years ago, even though I am a fan of e-books, I switched over to old fashioned paperbacks for my nighttime reading. I bought myself this great bedside lamp with an octopus like arm you can adjust perfectly in front of a book. I read for about an hour, sometimes two, before flicking the light off and drifting to sleep. I have bookshelves in both my bedroom and living room and have rediscovered titles which I had not read or thought of for years and years. I especially like Bill Bryson, the famed American travel writer, and I have been rereading all of his books. I guess the world is divided into people who read and people who don’t read and amongst the people who read it is further divided by those who will read to the end, no matter how bad the book is, like my friend Allie, and those who are perfectly happy to cut their losses.
Like me.
These nocturnal reads have quickly reaffirmed I am a cut your losses kind of guy because I am starting and not finishing a lot of books for what is certainly the second time. I am also finding a lot of bookmarks, not actual bookmarks mind you because that would be too logical, but business cards or scraps of paper, which must mean I had full intention of coming back and finishing them. But I never did. Tonight I was reading Bryson’s Neither Here Nor There, it was the original hardcover which I had bought at a yard sale for $2. I remember buying it and I remember congratulating myself for not calling the yard sale people morons because seriously, who sells a copy of Bill Bryson’s Neither Here Nor There for $2. I bought it even though I owned the paperback and was now rereading the hardcover because there was something very life affirming about a hardcover book in your hands. Very early in the book, I think it was the chapter when he was in Paris, I came across a bookmark. Which was weird because I have read Neither Here Nor There at least four or five times and it made no sense I would have used a bookmark. The other weird thing is the bookmark was actually a birthday card.
It was a birthday card from my mother.
Here’s the other weird thing.
Today was April 9th and, if my mother were still alive, this is the day I would be receiving a birthday card and a cheque for $200. My birthday is actually on the 20th of May but it had been years since my mother waited until May to give me my present. My mother had no mistrust of the postal system, did not think it was coming by pony express through the badlands or across the Atlantic on a steamship. She just did not want to miss my birthday. My brother and sister also got $200 and also weeks early.
I did not keep any of the cards. I would maybe display them on my mantle for a week or two. I have never kept any birthday cards from anyone. My mother inscribed the cards in English, which was her third language, and signed them with a ‘love mom’ in cursive. She bought the cards from the Shoppers Drug Mart in the Centre Point Shopping Centre. She got there by taxi or the wheel trans bus. On Saturdays she would go grocery shopping and get her hair done. I am not 100% sure about this but I suspect she bought the cards in bulk. She always had a spare wedding or bar mitsvah card on hand. She was my card supplier. After she died I just gave people cheques with no card. I would slip it in during a handshake as if the recipient were a doorman at an exclusive club I was trying to get into. I guess that was pretty tacky. But nobody ever complained. Anyway, they didn’t complain to me.
Both my mother and father balanced their check books so I always, after once getting an earful for keeping it in my wallet for six months, deposited or cashed in the cheque. Then I would have to show my mother what I had bought with the money. She liked it when I told her I used it to buy dinner on a date. I had no trouble making up the details.
I have had 61 birthdays and don’t remember many of them. When I was 10 I woke up to find a soccer ball under my bed. That was a good birthday. Then the next year, or maybe the year after that, I got a three speed CCM bike. I think even then I kinda suspected I would never get a better present.
When I turned 30 Allie threw me a surprise birthday party at her father’s house. She ended up having to invite a lot of her friends who I would not ordinarily have invited to a party. It has given me occasion to give her grief about that for the better part of 30 years. Which makes it a pretty good birthday. Also there was karaoke. My friends Brian and Jessica bought me a copy of a cd by Bruce Hornsby and the Range. A lot of people have bought me a lot of presents and I have no idea why I remember that one.
For my 50th birthday a group of us went to Las Vegas. There was a non golf portion of the trip at the Bellagio and then a golf portion a little out of town at the Red Rock Casino. A few years ago I was telling a friend about the non golf portion and she said “I know. I was there!!” I felt really bad about that. I still do. My friend Michael rented a cabana at the pool. I remember that. On my actual birthday, we played 36 holes of golf at two great courses. I don’t remember much other than some dispute about how much we should tip the caddies. It had been a really hot and humid day. I remember the waitress, upon hearing it was my birthday, asking me what I wanted to drink. I remember telling her I hadn’t peed in 8 hours. I do remember that.
My nieces got into the habit of calling me at midnight but my mother was always the first one to call on the morning of my actual birthday. She would call at around 8 am I would still be in bed so I would call her back a few hours later and then we would get into this whole thing about why I didn’t pick up. I could never get her to call at 10:00.
If you were born in May, there is a good chance I remember your birthday. My friend Hillary was the 14th. My friend Karen is the 28th. My sister Danielle is on the 24th. My niece Rachie is on the 22nd. I have four other nieces and three nephews and don’t know their exact birthdays. I know Rena’s is in July because she has always been at camp. My mother knew everyone’s birthday and would call me in the morning to remind me. My Israeli relatives had Hebrew and English birthdays and my mother would remember both. Although, if pressed, she would tell you that celebrating Hebrew birthdays was a little majnoun- crazy. Sometimes she would remind me of a birthday of someone I didn’t really need to know. “Today is Rafi’s birthday. Call him.” would be the message on my machine. Rafi was my cousin’s Morrie’s son. I didn’t need to know his birthday. But I miss those reminders. Rafi, if you are reading this, happy belated birthday.
When I turned 60 I threw myself a very big party. My friend Evie Christie, the poet, says that when she reads my stories she sometimes wishes she had a family and friends like mine. So I don’t want to invite the evil eye and say too much about the party. Only to say, I’m not an idiot, I know how lucky I am. That being said, I wonder if Evie refers to me as her friend Ron Zevy, the writer.
The birthday card was a picture of a tennis racquet. Inside, it said “You Are Aces in My Heart.” My mother had written. “Dear Ronnie. Happy birthday. Love Mom.” There was no cheque. I looked twice. I must have cashed it. I put the card up on the mantle above the fake fireplace.
I kept it up until my actual birthday.
Then I put it back into the Bryson book.
I’m not sentimental.
I just needed a bookmark.
The end.