Raised Right

My family was able to sleep well last Thursday, October 4th. October 4th is my birthday, and my family always gets a little nervous that I won’t have much to do over here in the desert on my birthday and they worry about me. Indeed, in years past I have lamented the state of birthdays while here in Jordan, but this year, it was a lovely birthday, and my family could sleep easily that night.

Birthdays are a funny thing—even when you leave the stage of childhood parties and the hopes of extravagant gifts, you kind of hope it will be a special day. I have had birthdays with surprise parties or drama rehearsals or choir rehearsals or Broadway shows, but at some point—when was that exactly???—we want a birthday that shows us a little of our worth.

As I have written before, my sister continues a tradition that my mother started for us in childhood. The night before I turned, let’s say, 11, my mother would tuck me in (even though by 11 I did not need tucking in!) and say, “Good night, little 10-year old!” When I moved away for college, she continued that tradition, and on and on. My sister picked up the baton a few years ago, in 2006, when my mother passed away. It is one of our sweetest traditions. So at bedtime I had the last taste of the year that would vaporize shortly.

I woke up early on Thursday—again, it is a habit that irks me sometimes. I went and checked email and there was a name I had not seen since 1996 when I left Charlotte, North Carolina. A parent of two girls I taught at Charlotte Latin had found my address, and wanted to write and send greetings after 16 years. Her daughters are in their mid-30s now and she simply wanted to thank me for all I had done to shape them into capable, intelligent, interesting adults. What a beautiful way to begin a birthday! How touching and how remarkable to look back on those vintage years in Charlotte in the pre-dawn of Jordan. She wondered how I had ended up in Jordan…

It was a work day so I set out for class observations (with my colleague Lilli we are visiting every classroom over a 3-week span, so I have about 4-5 class observations a day) but on the way to my office I get a call from Tracy, that wonderful Denison friend, who lives in Ohio. She had meant to call exactly at midnight her time to be the first to wish me a happy birthday but she had fallen asleep and woken up to find it was 12:30 a.m. her time. No worries! Tracy was indeed the first to wish me a happy day on the 4th! How great to start the day with the wishes of a loving friend!

One of the librarians that I met on my first whirlwind weekend visit to Jordan before I signed my contract in February, 2007, called me and asked me to come over to the library. He had a gift of two ties for me in a box he had made. I thanked him for his years of kindnesses to me and went to AP Art History class. I figured they didn’t know it was my birthday—students like to know so they can have a party—mostly so they can get out of having class. They didn’t know so we got to learn about the Parthenon—one of my favorite topics of the year!

During lunch with my advisees they decided it would be funny if they acted as if they were ignoring me. I guess they forgot that at various times in the week before they had all wished me a good birthday coming up. So they came late purposefully, ate quickly purposefully, and left…I figured they were up to something. Then they came back with a cake—a red velvet cake from Sugar Daddy’s, my favorite bakery in Amman. They had gotten the bakery to do a facsimile of a Piet Mondrian painting on the cake. How clever!

Later that afternoon I had a second cake—the teaching fellows with whom I work had gotten a mocha mousse cake (!) and two of the TFs had gone on-line and decorated the box of the cake with paperdolls from my guilty pleasure TV show, Downton Abbey! What a funny thing, and we traded some of our favorite lines, mostly from Maggie Smith, of course, but relaxed and enjoyed the camaraderie. I have saved the paperdoll-decorated cake box top and it is over there looking down on the kitchen counter.

As the school day came to an end, I called my sister and then my father. They were relieved to hear that I had plans for the evening! My friend Maria had invited me over for a little party, so whew, the fam in Cincinnati could rest much more easily! In a birthday email my Aunt Dot had bluntly and appropriately said, “If no one invites you out, so just go up to someone, announce it is your birthday and ask them to join you!” Ever the pragmatic one, Aunt Dot wanted to sleep easily that night as well!

I talk with my sister and my father at least once a week, but birthday calls are special. For one thing, our family treasure trove of memories is quite inexhaustible it seems, so my sister and I trade memories of birthdays past, of what the gifts were like, or going shopping for our present with our grandmother. Every August my father sneaks my birthday card into my suitcase just before I leave for Jordan. I forget he does this every year, so when I return and unpack here in Jordan I am always somehow surprised. I put the card aside until October 4th and then look lovingly and thankfully at his wishes. My father reminded me that when my mother decided it was time to go to the hospital to give birth, she wanted to first shave her legs so she would look her best for the hospital staff!

Maria made a party with me clearly in mind—she had pigs in blankets and bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with bleu cheese….I mean, seriously, that is the heart of good party food, as far as I am concerned! Of course, bacon-wrapped anything makes me happy! She had invited about 10 of our colleagues and the evening was spent with laughter and joy. No, it wasn’t a Broadway show, but it was caring people reveling in each other’s company. As a historian of sit-coms (among a few other things) the evening also made me think of a moment in the last episode of the The Mary Tyler Moore Show (of course, half the revelers from that night were not born yet when this episode first aired in 1977 when I tape recorded it with a hand-held audio microphone right up to the TV volume!!) when character Mary Richards spoke heartfully to her colleagues at her work TV station:

Mary Richards: Well I just wanted to let you know that sometimes I get concerned that my job is too important to me. And I tell myself that the people I work with are just the people I work with. But last night I thought what is family anyway? It's the people who make you feel less alone and really loved. And that's what you've done for me. Thank you for beginning MY family.



So anything that evokes an MTM reference must be a stellar evening!

I came back to my apartment and decided to look on Facebook. Say what you will about this phenomenon, but birthdays alone make Facebook spectacular! How easy, how fun to hear from people all throughout your lifetime. I had a great comment from a friend from the Gastonia, North Carolina chapter of my life. Kay wrote this sweet post:

Dear John, I join people of all ilks, ages, backgrounds, zip codes, nationalities, faiths, economic standings, educational levels, and political grounds to tell you that we, your fan club, come together on this day to celebrate the occasion of your birthday! We celebrate your wit and wisdom and expertise and we thank you for showing us the connections of art, music, times, culture, and history and for connecting us to the wonder of you! So get your celebration on, be it in Jordan or at the Red Sea or at RO's of Gastonia! Love you!

I had about 200 posts from people on Facebook, ranging from “O’C,” the family friend who witnessed the night my father asked my mother out for the first time, to students from all four schools where I have taught, to cousins to old colleagues, to Jordanian friends. It was a beautiful thing to scroll down and enjoy.

Before I went to bed, I called my father back. I had forgotten to tell him something I thought he would like to hear. Besides the cake, my advisees had made me a card, a big red-heart with kind thoughts in it. One of the comments ended with a tear-inducing, “Thank your mom and dad today for me. They sure raised you right!” I thought that my father should know.

So the birthday went nicely. It was sweet from morning to night. In fact, at 6:00 a.m. Jordanian time the following morning, the phone rang. Christy wanted to speak with me before October 4th ended in the United States. She said wouldn’t have slept well if she couldn’t have wished me a happy birthday!

All in all, a good day to think about the paths I have taken, the twists and turns of the road, and the wonderful people who bless my life.