By Elliot Doomes, February 13, 2020 — I missed all of those holidays. I never got Valentine’s [Day] cards and all that. I never had birthday parties either. I threw myself a birthday party when I was seventeen. I invited over some friends and had them sing “Happy Birthday to me.” About seven people showed up. We had some music and a cake that my brother and I made. My brother was a pretty good cook. At that birthday party, that was the first time my mother allowed me to smoke one cigarette. The next day, my mother walked in and saw me lighting up. Her hand came out of nowhere and my head one way and the cigarette went another way. I said, “But you said I could smoke.” And she said, “That was on your birthday.” I felt so grown when I had that birthday cigarette, but that didn’t last.
But by then I could throw my own birthday party because I’d been working since I was ten. I started in the wood cellar making bundles of wood, I sold shopping bags at 9th Street Italian Market (5 cents a bag), I worked on a fruit wagon with a horse down at the navy yard projects going door to door. “We got peaches, we got tomatoes!” I had a shoeshine stand and newspaper stand right outside Snockey’s — the old Snockey’s at 8th and South. He was pretty well known at South Philly, and when the newspaper stand and shoeshine place closed, I opened up my own shoeshine stand and caught people coming out of Snockey’s.
That was my first birthday party. I always had people telling me “Happy Birthday,” but we didn’t have any money, and I never expected my parents to spend any extra money on me. It was just another day for me. One time when I was twenty-five, or maybe even older, somebody gave me a birthday present. I’d never gotten one before, and I didn’t even know she knew it was my birthday. At first, I was stunned for a moment, and I looked at it. And then she said “Happy Birthday. Today is your birthday.” And I said, “Oh oh oh…thanks.” It wasn’t as enthusiastic or as grateful as she was expecting, but I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even ask my friends to bring presents to my birthday party. To this day, I still have trouble celebrating my birthday party, and I thought that nobody else thought birthdays were a big deal either.
Back in those days in the 30s, 40s, 50s, the only holidays we readily acknowledged were Easter (we got a Sunday suit, shoes, and a hat), Thanksgiving (we had a nice dinner) and Christmas (we got a new coat and a brand new suit). These became Sunday clothes that you only wore to church. We outgrew these and the stuff we got at Easter wouldn’t last us until Thanksgiving.
Being the younger brother, when my brother got new clothes, the old ones were usually handed down to me. I mean, that wasn’t just my family. Any family that had siblings, like older boys, when they outgrew what they wore, the older clothes were usually passed down to the younger siblings. Nothing was thrown away. I can remember, I was so happy when my brother’s long pants that he had outgrown were passed down to me. I was so proud because I had finally become a big boy, I had big boy pants! Back in those days, young boys used to wear short pants or knickers (pants that come down to your knees) with long socks and suspenders. And you’d wear belts with long pants instead of suspenders, so my mom would always used to say, “You don’t have enough butt to hold up long pants.” So when I got my older brother’s long pants, I’d felt like I was grown up.