A Birthday to Remember

Tomorrow is my birthday...the 34th one to be exact! Geez, I am getting old!


This morning on the news, the weatherman was talking about weather history and announced that TWENTY years ago today, Hurricane Hugo made landfall on the coast of South Carolina at Charleston.

Twenty years...TWENTY years...middle school, high school, college, working, Ireland, marriage, teaching, and a baby. Time has just flown since the day the storm showed up for my 14th birthday. Yet I can still recall it as if it were yesterday.

On the night of September 21st, we knew that the storm was coming. I grew up in Charlotte NC, and we were alerted that Hugo's path would take him through South Carolina and right up through Charlotte. We never went to sleep in the bathroom or a closet or took any emergency precautions, though we probably should have. Mom and Dad had just had two huge dead trees taken out of our yard that summer, and it's a good thing, since we'd most likely have had them crash into our house that night. According to the rest of my family, the wind howled and the trees looked like they were spinning in circles, but I slept right through it, dreaming of my 14th birthday the next day.

We awoke the next morning to a mess. Trees were down everywhere, blocking the roads out of the neighborhood. Wet leaves, beginning to wither and turn brown, made a carpet on yards, roads, and rooftops. The power was out all over the city. One by one, neighbors emerged from their homes to survey the wrath of the storm. My family drove around Charlotte to see it- I remember thinking that it looked like a war zone and I wondered if it would ever be the city I remembered again.

September 23, 1999 WAS a birthday to remember. Since no one had power, stores, schools- you name it were closed. My birthday cake, decorated to my specification with purple flowers, was at Harris Teeter and it was closed...so no cake for the birthday girl. Our power was out and we had no idea when it would come back on, so the birthday girl could not watch her new VHS tape of her favorite singing group...

Oh yeah, let's hear it for the New Kids! Alas, there were no sing alongs to Hangin' Tough on my birthday. I stuck the tape in the VCR for kicks and it got stuck, much to my chagrin!

Tree limbs and branches littered our backyard, and everyone had to help with the clean up efforts, so I couldn't wear my beautiful sapphire and diamond birthstone ring that my parents gave me and I was sure had cost them hundreds of dollars. (yes, I can still wear that ring!) One of the expensive diamond chips might have fallen out or I might have scratched it hauling tree limbs.

Sounds like a big disappointment, huh?

Well, in a way it was. Not the traditional birthday at all. BUT, I got a few gifts that year that have yet to be replicated, and I store in the most special treasure store of memory.

My neighbors had just filled their freezer with ice cream and steaks, all of which were quickly thawing. All of the kids in the neighborhood had my birthday party right in the middle of the street (remember, it was blocked by trees), happily eating melted ice cream right out of the container.

That night, our neighbors grilled the steaks and other foods right on the grill to make a delicious dinner for all of us. The parents sat on our next door neighbors' deck well into the evening and chatted by candlelight while we kids plunked our sleeping bags onto our deck and laid down to look at the stars. If you are a city kid, like I was, this was an amazing sight. We hardly ever had a view like that what with all the city lights to drown out perfect starlight. I was mesmerized.

This went on for a couple of days and I truly think these were some of the most fun days of my teenage years...with the TV and radios gone, we went back to the basics of just being kids. Playing, helping our parents in the yards, getting to know our neighbors, and seeing the Milky Way in it's entirety for the first time.

Within a few days, life went back to normal. My cake was brought home from the store, and we enjoyed it, but not as much as the melted ice cream on the street. The power came back on and we danced and sang with the New Kids, but it wasn't as much fun as the show we had in the heavens. Our yards got cleaned up and the heartbeat of Charlotte picked back up. Soon enough, school went back (we were out a week and had no spring break that year), neighbors went back to their own lives, and life returned to normal.

I think we all remembered those few days "without" and wished we could have them again...for we had so much in them. September 23, 1989, was truly a birthday to remember. I think it will go down as one of my favorites of all time.