Nathan Everett

I wonder if you become “real” at the first moment that memory enters your consciousness. What was I before my fourth birthday? In my own mind, I didn’t exist.

That fourth birthday, though, has been vivid in my mind for fifty-six years. Here is exactly what I remember.

We were sitting at the “breakfast bar” that Dad built by hanging a shelf at table height from a wall and putting chairs in front of. It may have been four feet long or forty. The only part of it I remember clearly is the little space that was in front of me and my Uncle Harry sitting beside me. The reason I know this was my fourth birthday is because of the candle holders on the cake. Old King Cole and his Fiddlers Three danced in their plastic glory in the center of the cake, each holding a candle for me to blow out.

“Old King Cole was a merry old soul,
A merry old soul was he.
He called for his pipe
And he called for his bowl
And he called for his fiddlers three.”

The candles were blown—or spit?—out and I got to lick the frosting off the feet of the candle holders.

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