Cecil's Birthday Cake with Candles
(Not an eyewitness account)
Cecil was 9 or10 when he got to
spend a whole week at the ranch with my parents (his great uncle and
aunt). Cecil is a about a year younger than my brother Roger. At
that time Cecil had two older sisters, two younger sisters and a baby
brother. Roger had two teen-aged sisters and two already married
sisters. Cecil and Roger rode horses, dug in the dirt, splashed in
the horse tank, climbed things, built things and other fun “boy”
things every day all day.
Toward the end of the week someone
realized that Cecil would be there on his birthday. He told them he
had never had a cake with candles on it so the teenagers set about
making him a special birthday cake. Ordinarily, there was one and
usually two or more opened packages of birthday candles in the
dishtowel drawer. At this particular time there were none. And none
in the junk drawer either.
Being creative, the girls made candles
with string and melted crayons in tin foil molds which they put in
the freezer to set. At the appropriate time they retrieved the
candles and giggling at their flat side arranged them on the cake and
presented it to Cecil. However, when they lit the first candle it
almost immediately melted into an ash covered pool of wax. No matter
how fast they tried to light the candles they could not get two
burning at the same time for Cecil to blow out and they sang “Happy
birthday” as they scooped the pools of wax off the cake. Cecil
still had not had a real birthday cake with candles to blow out but
he had a real birthday cake made with love and lit with laughter.
