Dear Bread Fans,
I'm thinking about playing, and what it does for the mind. I wrote about a 1936 bakery game for Wordloaf, and handling the paper dolls and cardboard dioramas has me musing about play.
When I was in fourth or fifth grade, I wanted an EZ bake oven. I'd been baking for ages, and my parents didn't want me to have a toy when I already used the real thing. I was incensed. I wrote a letter to them about how it wasn't fair, and I made a laundry list of all the other things that weren't fair in our family. My mom had taught me math on measuring cups, and I used my deep familiarity with fractions to accuse them of not divvying up their time and love evenly amongst their four kids.
My righteousness didn't make them change their minds. Instead of arguing with me about how they could more equitably distribute objects and love, my dad took me out for a Saturday together.
I was happy to be alone with my dad, but he didn't look me in the eye. His lightness, and usual affable self were somewhere else. First, we visited my grandfather, and I washed the dishes while my dad tried to convince his father to take a shower. What a thing it must have been to have obstinate children and parents to manage at once!
Next, we went to garage sales, eyeing the wares. I found a coveted oven and looked at my dad pleadingly. No dice. There was a flea market at Powers Park in Lansingburgh, a park with a wrought iron fence that was built by a family that made oil cloth floor coverings, precursor to linoleum. We passed tables full of plates and glasses, stacks of t-shirts and pants, car chargers, stuffed animals, and a million pink plastic ovens. I eyed the price tags and showed my dad the cheapest, but he hardly shook his head. We bought nothing on this strange shopping trip, and he revealed his lesson as he steered the great ship of our station wagon home. My father explained that he and mom loved me, and that objects wouldn’t prove that. The tight houses and patchwork lawns of the city stretched into fields and trees and housing developments.
“Do you believe me?” I asked. I nodded. Of course I believed my dad. But I still wanted the fake oven. I loved real baking, and considered myself the family baker. That’s why, I thought, I deserved a toy oven for play.
On my 30th birthday, I finally got one. My friend Julie held a 30-40-50 birthday party in a church basement. Julie was turning 50, her friend was turning 40, and I was pulling up the rear. My husband made Julie’s cake, a model of the Hindenburg, pounding thin copper into the blimp’s base and filling it with chocolate cake & frosting. He glazed the whole thing with raspberry jam, and flambeed the creation as we sang Happy Birthday. The other cakes were nowhere near as dramatic. I made a Texas sheet cake for the 40-year-old, and she made me a coconut cake.
A friend who owned Pistil Books, a great Seattle bookstore, brought me the toy oven. I was thrilled.
The herd of us goofed around and danced till after one a.m., and it was three in the morning by the time we had the place cleaned up. Already, the disco ball and paper stringers that we’d twisted around the posts were a memory. The room felt empty but full, and I could hardly believe the party we’d anticipated had passed. The floor tiles, the folding chairs, the plain, clean kitchen echoed the fun we’d had, and the fun people had at other parties.
Playing. Anticipation is a big part of the joy of play. I loved to make setups when I was little, Lincoln log ranches for my sister’s Breyer’s horses, cardboard houses for my dolls with Oscar Mayer baloney containers for skylights, dioramas for school. Imagining and making the setups was the fun; once things were done, and ready for us to play, the game lost its steam. Imagination is half or more of the fun.
I found the toy oven down in the basement again, as I do many years near my birthday. Will I use the mixes this year at last? The ingredients are almost as old as I am. I almost baked a cake last night, but I wasn’t in the mood. I’ll report back when I am!
Amy
A lovely story. We did get our daughter an EZ-Bake oven and I tend to think it was a lesson in how disappointing things can be relative to your expectations. The cakes were leaden and too often stuck to the pan no matter how carefully you greased them and what recipe you used. She did grow up fearless in the kitchen, though, so maybe it was a win.
You are a national treasure of a writer.