(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

LAST SATURDAY was my niece’s third birthday. She’s as cute as can be! Really, she’s cute enough to be in ads in Parents magazine or on Pull-ups packages. She is also very smart, very articulate. But none of that should be surprising. She came from the same gene pool as I!

So we had a party on Saturday night. It seems that it’s been a while since we had a good old party in our family. We have all been dealing with various adverse situations. It seems like the stress of it all has been getting the best of us. It was good to cut loose and have ourselves a right proper birthday party. There is nothing like pizza and birthday cake to make people happy.

ON OUR WAY to the party, my son, T, asked to listen to one of my Rush CDs. He loves Geddy Lee’s voice and, like the rest of the human race, is astonished by Neil Peart’s drumming abilities. The particular CD he requested was an old one, “All the World’s a Stage.” It’s one of my all time favorite live albums. It’s Rush in their early “hungry” days. It’s straight forward and kind of raw.

I first discovered Rush when I was about 13 years old. I remember sitting in my bedroom with just a black light on listening to them. I was at that stage of my life where rock music was just opening up to me. Listening to albums and increasing my collection became of utmost importance. “2112” was the first Rush album I bought. Soon thereafter I had all of their previous albums. I remember being so excited when “All the World’s a Stage” came out. Hearing Rush live blew me away. Listening to Neil Peart play live inspired me. Trying to practice along with the record humbled me.

I know this live album like I know the sound of my own heart beating. I had it blasting in the car on Saturday, despite my bad sinus headache. (Such a martyr for rock-n-roll, huh?) In nearly every song, I said to T, “Oooo! Listen! Listen! Friggin’ awesome drums, huh?” Then I’d back the CD up and listen to those parts again. The cool thing was that T was just as into it as I was.

A quick side note related to a Rush song: Last Christmas, when my daughters, H and M, were visiting, part of “2112” came on the radio. We were driving in the car on a back road. At one point I could not resist playing the air drums along with Neil on one particularly cool drum fill. It is not too hard to play air drums while driving if one’s legs are long enough to use a knee to steer with. A certain amount of drumming skill is required, as well as a willingness to crash while in the service of rock-n-roll, if need be. So maybe you should not try this at home.

After successfully pulling off the air drums stunt, M, who was six years old at the time, said rather seriously, “Daddy, when you act like that in public, it embarrasses me!”

I promptly called the radio station to thank the dj for playing the Rush tune and to relate M’s comment. They played a clip of our conversation over the radio!

Back to the story…

THE PARTY was a lot of fun. We had a truckload of pizza. The cake and ice cream hit the spot. My niece had a blast opening gifts. Even the dog got into the act and was decorated with discarded wrapping paper. The older boys played outside, jumping on the trampoline and playing soccer with a huge ball in the dark. I wanted to get in on some of that action. However, my ribs still hurt at times from playing tackle football with T and his friends in September. Now that I’m a little over 25 (**cough**), I don’t bounce back quite as well.

One of the highlights of the night began when my brother, who is also a rock star, picked up a small guitar that belonged to one of the kids. When he started to play around with it, one of the other kids ran into the room with another guitar exactly like the first. So we tuned them up to the best of our ability and commenced a good old ho down. What a riot! We could only pull off a few chords on these little guitars given our limited abilities. We didn’t care! We could have made up an infinite number of lyrics with just three chords. G, C and D in this case.

It only took a few minutes and nearly the whole family was involved in the scene. My niece danced, clapped, played the harmonica, while we all made up lyrics about her birthday. Somehow, in the midst of all the fun, my sister managed to change my niece’s Pull-up while she was dancing and clapping! So we added a verse about that. Soon we had kids playing tambourines and rattles. My sister was even playing a stainless steel milk can. She played it well at that! What a fun, funny, fantastic time!

Another quick side note: The little guitars, with their flesh piercing brass stings, reminded me of one old guitar that we had around when I was a kid, back when I was first listening to rock music. I remember trying to figure out how to play that thing. For the most part it frustrated me and convinced me to stick with the drums. But I did manage to figure out the vastly famous opening guitar line of Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water.” If you like that song you MUST, MUST, MUST listen to the whole album that it was originally on, “Machine Head.” This was another of my very early and well-loved albums, one that influenced my drumming style. I still listen to it often today.

ON SATURDAY NIGHT, we had such a good time that none of us wanted to leave. Birthday parties are cool. It’s fun to recognize one individual and let them know that you appreciate the fact that they are part of your life. Birthdays are always fun when it’s a child’s birthday. Yet, even if they are not as fun and crazy when one gets older, they are still an important opportunity to make someone feel special.

Perhaps this is one aspect of our party that made the night a little more significant. You see, I found out about a special request that another online journaler, Becky, made for her 50th birthday. Her desire was to have people email pictures that they took on that very day to make her day even more special. After people email their pictures to Becky, she will post them on her website. So we made a colorful “Happy Birthday, Becky!” sign and had my niece pose for a picture. When I got home that night, I emailed the photo to Becky, who happens to be in North Carolina.

SO there you have it, folks! Plan your parties and call in advance to book our family for a romping good time. We’ll come on over with our guitars, harmonicas, milk cans and good spirits. Whether you want “2112,” or “Smoke on the Water,” or “This Land is Your Land,” we will rock your socks off! Right on! Let’s rock-n-roll!

CORRESPONDING PICTURE GALLERY:

• Rush to a Party