A Toast to the Mallet Master

No one wants to be informed  that they're giving the toast as the bubbly is being poured.

But as the oldest daughter, that responsibility fell to me.

I'd driven up to suburban Maryland, a place I despise, solely because today was my Dad's birthday celebration and it's a big year for him, one that ends in a zero.

Because of that, pretty much my entire extended family was in attendance. All five sisters with husbands and children, aunts, uncles, the whole gang.

I honestly can't recall the last time we were all in the same place.

And while I have no need to do it again anytime soon, the chaos of so many people eating, drinking, looking at old photographs and just catching up was great fun.

I especially enjoyed an album of photos from my Dad's youth because he grew up here in Richmond.

There were shots in front of their house on Colonial Avenue, in front of the Richmond Dairy where my grandfather worked and even a newspaper clipping of my Dad as one of "five husky youngsters playing at Humphrey Calder Playground."

Even funnier, there were photographs of me and my sisters in nearly identical little girl dresses (why would you do something that corny with six girls?) as well as of us with bad 80s hair.

It's astounding how big our thick, straight hair got during those years.

My brother-in-law pulled out a long-forgotten picture of him and me and our respective main squeezes at the time sitting on the dock at Kerr Lake after water-skiing (more correctly for me, after attempting to water-ski).

Did I ever look that impossibly young? Yes, apparently I did.

Hours into all this strolling down memory lane and catching up, my bossiest sister (#5) decided it was toasting time, to be followed by (hazelnut/chocolate) birthday cake time.

As I'm helping her pour dozens of glasses of Blanc de Blanc, she leans in and says, "You're doing the toast."

When the competitive sister (#3) hears this, she hisses, "How come you're giving the toast?" as if I've usurped her job or something.

She does consider herself Dad's favorite.

To my defense comes the most introverted sister (#2) who says loudly enough so that even the  non-family members can hear, "Because she's the OLDEST!"

I do not once in my entire life remember being introduced by one of my sisters that it wasn't with the clarification that I am the oldest.

Just in case there was any doubt.

So with no time to prepare something well-thought out, cameras were turned on and I stood up to toast a man who has shaped the woman I became.

"You talked to us. You listened to us. You taught us to play croquet. To the best Dad any six daughters could ever ask for."

Brother-in-law #3 waited a beat and then raised his glass to my Dad.

"And that was a lot of listening!" he said to great cheering.

But what smart man doesn't want to listen to the talkative females around him?

And my Dad has always been a very smart man. Which makes me a very lucky daughter.