Birthday Songs

February 23, 2020

We had to warn them. We just had to. All twenty-two of us were sitting in the restaurant celebrating Linda, Jeanine, and Bob’s birthdays, and it was time to sing. In most families, that wouldn’t be something requiring a warning, but we’re talking the Baileys here. So Jeanine slipped over to their table and gave notice.

We had reserved the room, but the Stockton Hotel doesn’t have lots of extra places to seat people other than in the bar, and the party that sat at the next table wouldn’t have fit at the small tables there, so here they were, off to the side while we were finishing dinner. It was time to sing. 

I don’t remember exactly how it began, except that our eldest granddaughter Alex had something to do with it, just as she did with so many things in our life. She is the reason her uncle Matt married Jeanine and is living just down the road from her home. Matt had planned on moving to Cincinnati to be with the girl he was dating at the time. After one weekend out there, he was back in Rochester. “What happened?” we asked, wondering why this budding romance had so quickly fizzled. 

“I decided I didn’t want my niece to grow up not knowing me. I wanted to be in her life,” was his reply. So Matt stayed in Rochester, met Jeanine, and the rest is as they say, history.

Alex is also the originator of Linda and my family names. When she was learning to talk, she couldn’t pronounce grandma or grandpa. What came out was Meema and Beepa. It stuck, and now half the kids at church know us by that nomenclature.

Then there is the Happy Birthday song. Everyone knows it, but very few know it as the Baileys sing it. We called Alex on Skype, and she did the honors. Suddenly the air was rent with the most awful off-key bellowing you have ever likely heard! If you can imagine the sound coming from a bull whose testicles are being squeezed in a vice, combined with a murder of crows cawing, then add the screeching of a cat fight, and you’ve approximated the Bailey Happy Birthday song. The guests at the next table were quite impressed, especially when informed that a fair percentage of those singing were part of the Park church worship team. When Linda and crew were finished opening their gifts, I looked over at the table. It was empty.

The waitress was impressed by all the laughter, especially when I told her this was a typical Sunday gathering at our house. Twenty or more for Sunday dinner is the norm, not the exception. This evening, Linda whispered to me how wonderful a day it had been. Yes, it was, and we are blessed, “pressed down, shaken together, and running over” (Luke 6:38).