happy birthday to me
I grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana, born at the end of May, when the city is putting on its biggest celebration, the Indy 500. The year that I was born my mother’s doctor, an old friend of my dad, sent his nurse over to stay with my mom four days after my birth, so that he and my dad could go to the race together. My mom was barely out of the hospital with her first child!
My birthday could have been the anticlimax of every year’s festivities, but I chose to embrace it. When I was eleven years old, I was invited to attend my first race with my parents. It was such a thrill. The Indy 500 has been called “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing”, but in fact it claims the largest attendance for a single sporting event in the world. This year 350,000 people descended on the Speedway’s two-and-a-half-mile oval.
Even getting to the track itself was an event. My dad grew up in Indianapolis as well, and he followed intricate routes to get there, including backstreets and alleys. One year he made it to the track entrance in record time. My mom was so impressed that she commended him on the feat. He humbly replied, “Yes, but I just wish I’d brought the piano.” “Why in the world would you want the piano?!” queried Mom. “Because that’s where the tickets are,” my dad calmly replied, before turning the car around and heading back to the house.
When I moved to California, I was usually in church on Sunday morning when the race was run. Finally, succumbing to nostalgia, I told my family that I wanted to play hooky from church on that one morning and watch the race, enjoying all the same traditions that we had observed when I was young: pulling drivers’ names out of a hat and awarding a prize to the winner, dressing in black and white checkered clothing, eating fried chicken and hard boiled eggs and drinking Bloody Marys. Eventually, even if I had wanted to stop the tradition, my family wouldn’t let me. This year, when my son’s family had out of town company staying at their home, they told their friends that they would be on their own that day, while my kids and grandkids came up to spend the day with me.
My oldest grandson, Campbell was fascinated by the race from the start. He can remember each race, which driver won, and which drivers each of us had drawn the year before. Usually, the rest of the grandkids play upstairs or run races on an electric car race track that we set up in another room. But this year our oldest granddaughter Charlotte watched the entire race. Maybe it was more interesting to her this year because last July Dave and I took her on a trip to Indianapolis and included a tour of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. She saw how massive the venue is and watched cars drive the track in the rain. Though they weren’t going the speeds of a typical race, she was impressed by how loud they were.
At the end of this year’s race Charlotte turned to Campbell and said, “I can’t believe that I watched the whole race this year, and it was really fun.” I couldn’t have been prouder if she had said that she had just accepted Jesus as her personal savior!
I’m being facetious. However, there is something about family traditions that is so powerful at keeping people connected to their kin and their pasts. I don’t know what your family traditions are, but I hope they serve to build an unbreakable bond with those you love.
Love, Liz
