Muffin birthday

What's this? John looks askance at the unique version of birthday cake that's part of his family history.

When my partner John let it slip that the date of an upcoming block party was also his 76th birthday, scheming ensued.  Should there be a cake? A recording of “76 Trombones”? Seventy-six somethings? Party organizers wanted to know.

No cake, I told them.  John would prefer a laugh any day. Why not just have someone tell the story of the birthday muffin?

It’s a family story from harder times, when kids would scrabble under the sofa cushions for nickels to fund an ice-cream outing. A time when John’s grandfather, living with unlocked doors in the West Vancouver house he built himself (there was a sawmill in the basement), reportedly once said: “If anyone breaks in, I’ll offer to go halves if he finds anything.”

Kids’ birthdays weren’t necessarily highlights of the year in that era – parties were not a given, and bouncy castles and gift bags were phenomena of the future. But John’s aunt, an irascible soul given to laying down the law rather sharply, went a step too far when she let it be known that her son, John’s cousin, shouldn’t expect a cake on one of his birthdays.

He moaned and complained so incessantly that his mother finally lost patience. She grabbed a muffin – remember that 1950s’ muffins were austere little things, likely bran  – and stuck a candle in it. “Here’s your birthday cake, kid,” she said. “Now stop whining!”

John didn’t get a cake this year either. But he got something better –  a celebration of his birthday from neighbours gathered under the shade of the boulevard trees. And best of all, their laughter when one of them, coached by me, told the muffin story once more.

The grand finale was the presentation of a single bran muffin, candle blazing in the afternoon heat. John blew it out.

John makes a good show of pretending to enjoy his birthday muffin. A few bites was enough, but as a photographer, he understands the importance of making use of props. 

Alas, the muffin was from a grocery-store six-pack and too sweet for John's tastes. I couldn't face baking a batch myself in the summer heat.