Diary February 22, 1960: Holiday Cake, She Calls It

[click to enlarge]

"Dear Diary--

No school today!

I went to Gilda's today, with Leslie. Loads of fun. But we couldn't find Sheila or Tina for Leslie to play with, so she played with us. And seemed quite content.

Mother made a holiday cake (she calls it) with cherries on top and pale pink frosting. The cake itself has a delicate peppermint taste, and chopped cherries all through it. De---licious!

Oh, and I forgot to tell you about the castle Gilda and I have dreamed up. Pink marble, with a blue marble roof and green marble minarets, adorned with green gems, and two white marble horses on top of the palace.

(More tomorrow)"

A pink cake with cherries on it and in it baked on February 22 sounds like a George Washington's Birthday Day cake. I think the reason Mom called it a "holiday cake" was to imply that it was--but, in fact, my father's birthday and George Washington's were one day apart. While George was dead and couldn't complain, my father hated any mention of his birthday, so my mother probably wasn't allowed to celebrate it, officially anyway. (He was 13 years older than she was, and she was no teenager when she had me; he was almost 50 when he became a dad for the first time.) As a teenager, I once insisted on baking my father a birthday cake, despite my mother's warnings. When I presented it to him, he just grabbed his coat, brushed past me to the garage, got in his car and drove away.