"Those sharing the fun with Ricky were..."

My long-ago birthday party was in the news. The current one wasn't, but somehow the little guests come trooping back through.

Below is the first time I was in the newspaper. Mom clipped it out of the beloved Hood River News, now operating as part of Columbia Gorge News , saved it and passed it on to me, so here you go:

So that’s how old I am: I grew up in an era when the local paper cheerfully ran a report on a kid’s birthday party. It was 1957 and Dwight Eisenhower, a dignified, cautious and responsible Republican — remember them? — was president. A quaint time, it seems now.

We lived about 2 miles outside of Hood River, Oregon, off Belmont Road, and I guess the correspondent for that area called Mom on the party line and asked what was up in our household. Or Mom called her with the news, I’m not sure.

They called me Ricky in the article. My siblings were saying they remember when I was called Rick instead of Eric for several early years, mainly by one family of cousins, but not Ricky. Our tough Grandma, Flora, called me Rick, for sure.

They spelled our last name wrong in the article, too. We were MortenSON not SEN. That was the spelling for my eventual classmate Jane Mortensen. Me and Jane always joked we were long lost twins. We were born in the same hospital in Hood River on the same day but didn’t meet until we were about sixth or seventh graders, I think, and picked strawberries for school clothes money one summer. Me and Jane say we got switched at birth or something. It’s been pretty funny over the years.

I didn’t know Jane when I turned 6, though, so she wasn’t among the little guests who came to my birthday party. But the list in the newspaper article is like a who’s-who from childhood.

I’m still friends with Michael Oates, who still lives in Hood River and has made quite a name for himself as a county commissioner, farmer, planning commission member, local theater stalwart and more.

I’m sorry to say I don’t know what became of Bobbie Parker (probably spelled Bobby), Leslie Head (a boy), and Tommy Craig. They all moved away within a few years of the party. Some of my classmates are subscribers here on Substack and maybe they know.

But Carl Asai was my best friend in those early days. I remember we had the same Cowboy shirt one year in school. His family lived just west of us up Belmont about a quarter mile and they had a neatly tended pear orchard. Here’s us from that era:

Me and Carl met for lunch once maybe 15 years ago — he lives in the Portland area, too — and I told him he looked exactly like his dad. I told Carl I’d talked to his dad, Masami “Min” Asai, at my dad’s funeral several years before. Min told me Carl was real good at golf, a 2 handicap.

Carl got all bashful at that and said, oh, his handicap had never been that low. Which means he probably was pretty close to it, and which is still really good. I should call him up and invite him to go play. I’m woefully inconsistent, but love the game.

Left to right, that’s me and Carl and our mutual good friend, Rich Cushman, at our 50th class reunion a few years ago.

I texted a copy of the Ricky birthday article to my siblings and they hooted at it, of course. The article doesn’t mention our two older brothers, and the younger siblings accused me of not inviting them. But Neil chimed in to say he wasn’t at the party because he was probably busy with his post-graduate studies and Paul, the oldest, had made a speed run to the liquor store. We all had a good laugh at that. Paul died in 2013, as I probably told you. I’ve written quite a bit about death, which is something you think about every time somebody serves up a birthday cake, at my age.

The Hood River News article said my younger brothers, Denis and Bobby, and our sister Sheila, who came right after me in the birth order, got to have some cake and ice cream served up by Mom, who in the newspaper language of the time was listed as Mrs. James Mortenson instead of Agnes. The article spelled Denis wrong, too. They put two Ns in it, Dennis. The other younger brother, Bobby, or Bob, has a wife who calls him Robert. Her late dad had the same birthday as me.

Anyway that was part of how I spent my birthday this year; looking at that goofy old Hood River News clipping from 1957, when I turned 6. How come? Why do things like that grab you and make you wonder about the little guests?

I got a bunch of nice birthday greetings on Facebook this year, which I always enjoy. But I noticed that this time the greetings didn’t outnumber my age, which is probably an indicator of slippage. A watershed moment, as we used to say in journalism, when we figured something was noteworthy.

What else? Oh, I started my birthday morning with a reverential ceremony by treating myself to an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie from a batch I made the other day. I told one of my friends that Texas Ranger Capt. Gus McCrea from the novel and mini-series “Lonesome Dove” may have been revered for his sourdough biscuits, but I’d put my cookies up against them any day.

The friend, Rev Nev, was a reporter who worked with us at the Eugene Register-Guard newspaper during its glory days in the 1980s and 1990s. His name is Paul Neville and he’s an author now. I called him Rev Nev because he was also a minister and officiated when me and Mrs. Eric Mortenson got married in 1997, at a golf course clubhouse. He’s also noteworthy because his birthday is two weeks before mine and he beat me to 73. We josh back and forth about who is more decrepit.

Anyway, I froze half of the cookie batch. If the kids were still living at home the cookies would have disappeared by the handful. I’m going down to the store in a bit to get some milk to dunk my next one. I made a note to remember to take that coupon for a free jug of Miracle Whip. We do go through that stuff. When that store has a sale, the coffee we drink is $5 cheaper there than at the fancier store.

So you can see my days are pretty full, birthday or no.

I already walked and fed the dogs, and both cats sauntered in, looking for wet food from Winco. Me and Hazel, our youngest, keep watch on the neighborhood, because I’m not a rash young man anymore.

I heard from all four of my kids, and you probably know how nice that is. They are gifts.

Somebody ought to call the newspaper.

……………………………………….

Turns 73 years old

Rick Mortenson was 73 years old on Monday. His wife, Mrs. Eric Mortenson, took him and his third kid to dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant. His first kid and his only grandchild took him shopping at Ikea the following day. The day after that, he played golf with his buds. He ate chocolate chip cookies. Little guests trooped through his mind. They included Carl Asai, Michael Oates, Jane Mortensen, Rich Cushman, Paul Neville, and his brothers and sisters.

…………………………………………