A Special Birthday (Long Ago)

When I was five years old, my family moved to a new house in the suburbs, vacating a walk-up apartment in Newark, New Jersey.

We were fortunate to learn about a house for sale, not though a broker or For Sale sign, but by word of mouth. My grandparents knew a developer and his wife in town who had just built a row of brick capes for his three daughters.  But the tract of land was subdivided into four parcel of 1/4 acre each, so he had to build a fourth house to sell to a non-family member, perhaps to help finance the project. Thanks to the social connection between my grandparents Mr. and Mrs. Weiner and the builders Mr. and Mrs. Tunkel, we were considered a suitable family, and a handshake sealed the deal, no haggling.

There were no fences between the lots, those came later as post-war prosperity increased and professional landscaping emerged. My brother and I played easily with all the children of the three sisters, each of whom had a boy and girl just like us.

For my birthday the next year – age six – my parents thought of something that made my sixth the one I remember most of all.

My parents were of modest means – dad employed as a factory machinist and mom at home. For my upcoming big day in August, they rented a pony and invited everyone on the block and across the street. We all had a chance, boys and girls alike, to ride around the perimeters of the four combined yards, carefully led by the pony’s trainer on a hot end-of-summer afternoon.

My dad took a photo of me on the pony holding tightly onto the reins, like a real cowgirl. I don’t remember a cake, candles, or presents, or anything else about the party, just sitting on that gentle brown pony as if I were a cowgirl like Dale Evans.

Young children have a natural affinity and affection toward animals and this may have been my first experience feeling it, living outside of the city after my four years in Newark. The lighting bugs we caught in the backyard did not have the same effect; this was a relatable creature with large soulful eyes and placid demeanor. I simply fell in love with him.

After the pony left, I felt very sad and cried myself to sleep that night; maybe that is why I remember this birthday so vividly. For days afterward, I wondered what happened to the pony, where he lived, if he was treated kindly, if he had a good life …. and if I would ever see him again.

Later on in my childhood, I acquired a second-hand three-wheeled Ross bike. In summers, we spend many hours at the beach at my grandparents’ house in Glen Cove, Long Island. Even though we lived in northern New Jersey where the Esso oil refinery was located, the air felt fresh walking to school each day, with plenty of room to run through the yards, and skate and bike up and down the side streets without parental supervision.

We even had a dog, Charlie, which my brother acquired from a neighbor’s litter, an adorable black mixed-breed puppy. He grew into a strong and lithe creature, too much for us to handle, and so my mom decided that he had to go to the pound. After the pony who disappeared, at my age eleven another childhood experience of loss.

POSTSCRIPT:

I was recently going though my mom Rose’s voluminous correspondences and journals. There, on six pages of  a legal pad, in her seventies, she had jotted down numerous memories from her own childhood through her courtship with her late-in-life partner Eli. And embedded in that list was mention of “Barrie’s birthday party with the rented pony.”

This affirms to me that this event was as important to her as it was to me, thank you Mom for this precious gift of a memory that we both treasured.

   Mommy and Me