When I was a kid, I had a friend whose birthday was a little less than a month before mine. Davy’s birthday sometimes happened during the school year and sometimes right after. At least once it landed on the last day of school. Mine was in the middle of June after school was out in our town in the years I was a student there. Sometime before Davy’s birthday each year a conversation would arise between us:

“How many kids are you going to have at your birthday party?” one of us would ask. Neither of us had families that were really into birthday parties like some of our classmates. Both of us had a supply of brothers and sisters. However, I had more than Davy and usually I could count on having a few more children at my party than he. Besides, we had a trampoline, which assured that there was a constant supply of kids who weren’t in our family in our yard and they counted when assessing the number of people at a party.

The conversation usually led to other comparisons. “What are you gonna get?” The year I turned six, I was pretty sure I had Davy bested. In our family, the tradition was that each child received a two-wheeled bicycle for their sixth birthday. I also knew that there would be no training wheels on mine. I had already learned to ride my sister’s bicycle, so there would be no need. As it turned out Davy got a bike for his birthday that year. That was a very good deal because we rode our bikes all around town all summer long. Davy’s electric train, a Christmas present, was Lionel. Mine was American Flyer. The two sets weren’t compatible. His trains wouldn’t run on my track and my trains wouldn’t run on his.

After speculating about presents, we might go a bit farther to talk about what kind of cake we would have and how big. That might be followed by conversation about what we would have for birthday dinner. My favorite dinner was fried chicken with mashed potatoes. Davy was a fan of tater tot casserole. My mother liked to cut up a sheet cake and rearrange the parts to make an animal figure or another shape. One year my cake was in the shape of an airplane. Cake was fine, but I always thought that ice cream was the real treat. And Davy’s father worked at the creamery, so he always had ice cream. Besides, our family got ice cream in a big three-gallon bucket, always vanilla. His family got ice cream in half-gallon cartons and often had two or three flavors on hand. There was almost always chocolate, which I liked a lot. Since we both ate a lot of meals at both houses, I got a pretty good chance to compare the ice cream fare at his house with ours. Theirs won hands down.

Although I keep a loose track of Davy, I haven’t spoken to him in at least 25 years. I think the last time I spoke with him was around the time I moved to Rapid City. I am Facebook friends with his mother, who is a remarkable woman and in many ways the matriarch of the town where we grew up. She will sometimes post something about Davy on her page, but not often. I know that Davy moved to a university town and that his wife had a major illness a few years ago. But I simply haven’t kept up. I don’t know how many children, nieces and nephews he has.

If I were to have the opportunity for a conversation with him, however, I think I might lead with the fact that I had eight kids at my 70th birthday party. We had lunch in a park that featured pizza as the main course. There were big bowls of cherries, grapes, and strawberries. And we had four - count ‘em - four cakes. One big angel food cake and three smaller ones of the same kind baked in bread loaf pans. We only have one angel food cake pan after our recent downsizing. Maybe we’ve only ever had one angel food cake pan.

But eight kids at my party! That surely has to be some kind of a record among my friends. Like the days when my brothers and sisters added to the number of kids at my birthday parties, I have the good fortune of family for this year’s celebration. All five of our grandchildren were there plus two great nieces and one great nephew. In fact those eight children constitute all of Susan’s parents’ great grandchildren. And the cousins get along. And the park was a perfect venue with big fields for running, two playgrounds, and an observation tower that you can climb up and look out at Mount Baker beyond the water lily-filled lake at the edge of the park. We lucked out finding several tables under a shelter that were not reserved for the day and were available for us to use. the park was not crowded on a weekday. Our son has taken a couple of days off from work to enjoy the rush of family.

The guests are beginning to arrive for our anniversary celebration this weekend. Yesterday afternoon and evening we drove down to Seattle to meet a flight with one of Susan’s sisters and her husband. This evening a couple of nephews arrive on the bus. My sister and her two children, their spouses, and her granddaughter arrive tomorrow. That means that our family group will have nine children for the children’s sermon in church on Sunday. I’m pretty sure that no other family will be able to top that number. And, as the one who will be leading the time with children in church, I’m guaranteed at least nine children will be up front for the story.

As birthdays go, 70 is turning out to be especially memorable. I couldn’t imagine a better birthday party. I hope that Davy - and all the others who are turning 70 this year have such good fortune. A lot of children at your birthday party is indeed a special blessing.