I’ve been scanning old photos. I’m trying to leave something for posterity, even though I realize that I’m the only one that cares about these images. When I came across this one, I started to wonder how much of all of our lives are kept alive in these old images. Let me explain.

The cake is for a 3rd birthday party, my 3rd birthday party. It looks like I made a good, but not overwhelming haul that day. The little box in the upper left looks like jewelry, maybe it’s a ring? I’d say that the one in the lower right was probably a book. Six presents for a 3-year old isn’t bad at all.

The most important thing in the photo is, of course, in the center: it’s the cake. That cake has assumed hagiographic proportions in my memories. It was a very special cake that had been ordered from the City of Paris bakery in San Francisco. The City of Paris was a department store where I would have one of my better tantrums as a child, but that’s not what this photo was about. It’s a beautiful cake. It’s almost too beautiful for a 3-year old. Therein hangs a tale.

Since my birthday was celebrated on the 4th of July, my cakes usually had a patriotic theme. There are three drum majors on the left of the cake. They are probably plastic. The red, white and blue roses, however, were definitely not plastic. They were made out of pure sugar. Evidently they could be saved “forever and ever.” Why anyone would want to save them forever and ever is beyond my comprehension. Yes, I ate them. I popped them in my mouth and thoroughly consumed those little American beauties.

No biggie, you say? Well, my mum never forgave me. It was the punch line to any argument. It was proof of my deficits as progeny. It demonstrated my failings as a human being: “and you ate the flowers on your 3rd birthday cake!!! They could have been saved forever and ever!!! Only City of Paris made those flowers!!! And you ate them!!!!” Ad nauseam. Under the verbal assault, I was thinking to myself, “and why didn’t you order more bloody flowers if you wanted them so much!”

So, when I look at this photo I can hear my mum’s voice. Of course I don’t feel guilty or deficient anymore, but I used to. And I can still tap right into those feelings just looking at the photo. Fortunately, I don’t stay there for long. There are large chunks of childhood that are best forgotten I think. There are those bits that are indelibly imprinted on my pea brain and there are those things that I can’t recall at all. I don’t remember eating the flowers. I probably did, but I can’t recall it. I hope that I did. I had to rebel on some level.