The Kindness of Strangers

For the past 3 months Simon has been preparing for his 8th birthday. His birthday falls pretty close to Christmas so it can easily be rolled into one big celebration -but not this year thank you very much. In our household it isn’t so much the birth DAY but a birthday SEASON.

We started it off the Saturday after Thanksgiving in Hood River, Oregon with a combined party for Simon and two other adult family members who have birthdays in December. Homemade chocolate cake was on the menu, lots of balloons, party favors, pin the tale on the donkey, musical chairs and musical statues. Now this may sound rigged, but Simon won all the games! Although to be fair Grandma, the most sprite-ful octogenarian on the planet, did a phenomenal job dancing to We Will Rock You. And Grandpa was rudely misinformed when he asked for direction on where to direct the Donkey’s tale and it ended up on the light switch not even in the same room as the donkey.

Leaving Hood River in the rear view mirror we headed up to Mount St Helen’s, then into the big city of Seattle for a few days, across to the Olympic Peninsula, down through the rainforest, back along the Oregon Coast and on to Highway 5 to Palo Alto.

Every day there was at least one conversation about the upcoming birthday celebrations. More to the point it was a pop quiz to make sure we all knew what was expected on the big day in mid December.

We were all very well versed on how Simon would wake up in Aunt Lalitha and Uncle Garret’s house on December 17th. Breakfast would be brought to him in bed and would include scrambled eggs, bacon, hot chocolate with extra extra whipped cream and multi colored sprinkles. He would open one present in the morning then take the Cal Trains from the California Street station up to San Francisco. There would be a walk over to the Hyde and Market Trolley Car to Fisherman’s Wharf, a walk down to Pier 39, an adventure at the aquarium and then top it all off at Ghirardelli Square for an ice cream sundae.

Research was done to figure out the train schedule, maps, admissions cost for the aquarium and lists of ice cream flavors available at Ghirardelli.

As Simon’s real birthday eve approached Simon was looking more and more pale, he had a non existent appetite and a forehead that kept getting warmer and warmer. At 1 AM, an hour in to being 8, he woke up in a feverish stupor saying, “Mom, can I have a rain check on San Francisco?” His actual birthday was spent at the doctor but he did rally for a Birthday Bike Ride with Balloons thanks to Miracle Motrin, bubblegum flavored.

On December 28th, 11 days into being 8, we were in San Francisco for the Birthday Make Up Day – and, hang on to your hats Ladies and Gentlemen – you may wonder if the following could possibly be true, but it is!

A cable car ride. You have to ride the cable car up and down the incredible hills of SF, especially if it is your birthday. But when there is a 90 minute wait behind 548 fellow tourists you start questioning just how necessary it really is. Who knew that the week between Christmas and New Years would find the city chock a block with everyone and their mother? The line wrapped around the round house and circled down the long block towards Union Square.

We had been waiting about 15 minutes and had moved up hardly 10 feet. There were plenty of Cable Cars coming and going but it takes a while to unload, turn them around and load them up again with the maximum of 50 passengers per car. There was a Cable Car next to us with a couple of conductors in their brown uniforms chatting and laughing. I got to thinking there must be some other stops along the way. So I asked Simon if he would feel comfortable asking the conductor if there was another stop near where we could board that didn’t have such a crazy line. He said he felt fine with that I reminded him to be polite and wait for them to finish their conversation before he asked. He looked back at me and asked smiling, “Should I tell the conductor it is my birthday?” “Sure, why not?” I replied.

Simon waited patiently for the Conductors, who spoke in a mixture of English and Spanish, to finish up their chat while I watched from the line. The conversation ended. Simon looked up at the Conductor and started out, “Excuse me sir, I am sorry to interrupt but today is my birthday and I was wondering if there might be another line….”

The Conductor stopped Simon and asked him his name, how old he was, who he was here with and then said, “Come on up here Simon. Today is your lucky day.” Not only did he pull us out of the line and have the two of us jump aboard the Trolley Car, held him up to ring the bell, and sit in the very front, but after he spun the car around and we headed towards the front of the line to let the other people on he shouted, “No other passengers on this Trolley Car today folks, this is the Simon Birthday Special.”

Should the Conductor be suspended for favoritism of 8 year old adorabel red headed boys? Did Simon work the birthday angle? Perhaps a little of both, but it made for a memory that will last a lifetime.