This American Life - 174: Birthdays, Anniversaries, and Milestones

Broadcast on: 29 Dec 2000

With the holiday season about to begin, it's a show about holidays and milestones of all kinds. Today's This American Life was taped a few years back in front of the live audience. When the big day finally arrives, the day you've been waiting for, it's like the invisible is made visible. And sometimes you will get it and you think, "That's it?" For weeks before his 11th birthday, Jason wanted a party at a roller rink with all his friends. He never had a birthday party, so he invites 11 friends, gets her RSVPs, and comes the big day. The party room with the roller rink is his. And we waited around, we waited around, and we're waiting there for an half hour. And none of my friends had, none of the invited guests had arrived. And so they put us in the room and my mom asked me, "Well, where is everybody? Where is everybody?" And said, "Well, I don't know where everybody is." And they said they'd be here. They had, they said they'd be here. All I have is this vivid image marked on my brain of a table and ten chairs around the table and all of these Sundays, these white Sundays with hot fudge on them, ten empty chairs, ten uneaten Sundays. It's like the last supper, you know, but if none of the apostles made it. Exactly. To this day, Jason still cannot explain it. He had friends at school, he was always picked first for kickball. The next year, his cat, a cat that was the same age as he was, died on his birthday. Another year, his aunts and uncles accidentally set fire to the back of his house. In preparing for today's program, I have heard lots of horrifying birthday stories. Matt was robbed on his birthday. Lynn's home was destroyed by an earthquake. Sarah had a tree that was planted the day she was born and on her 17th birthday, lightning hit the tree, it burned to the ground. How do you not see that? It's symbolic of something. Years after Jason's party at the roller rink, the one where nobody showed up, his girlfriend still asked him about it and she asked him about it a lot. It must explain something about who he is today. And I have to point out again that I don't think, at least, that I was a loser when I was growing up. But the thing is, as much as I say that it happened, I had this birthday party that only one person went to and that's going to hold stronger than anything that I could possibly say to convince her that I was not a loser.

Certain days have symbolic meaning, whether we want them to or not. That's why it's important, I think, to overcompensate, to go big. They're a huge party. Surround yourself with people. Make a lot of noise. That is why my friends today, on the 5th anniversary of our radio show, we have come out here to be with you. In this huge theater from W.B.E.C. Chicago, and Public Radio International, it's this American life, I'm Ira Glass. ♪♪ Our program recorded today on a four-city tour of New York, Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles, a co-production with radio stations WNYC. W-B-U-R-W-B-E-Z and K-C-R-W, many, many thanks to them. Today on our program, birthdays, anniversaries, milestones of all sorts, and what do they really mean anyway? Act 1, Pilgrim's Progress. Sarah Val takes over the family Thanksgiving dinner by bringing everyone to New York City. Babies crying, birds a dying, people sighing, Ellis Island. Island. Back to Kodak Moments of the Dead. The story of a young funeral director who is updating one of our most sacred and oldest rituals of commemoration, doing something that even other funeral directors find very, very strange. Act 3, birthday gift. Russell Banks has a story that unfolds so cleanly and pleasingly that really, I have to say, the less said about it at this point, better. Music throughout our hour from Chicago Pop Music Sensation, okay go, stay with us. ♪♪ 1, Pilgrim's Progress. We are a nation whose national holidays are usually more about getting together with family and friends than actually commemorating the past.

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