Henrietta Hay's Column

I am sure that I had a tenth birthday once, but it occurred so long ago that I have absolutely no memory of it. Maybe that was the year I got my roller skates and it snowed. I am sure, however, that I had a cake, a big, white fluffy cake made by my mother with real butter and real cream and lots of sugar and lots of love. I may have forgotten the details, but I remember the feeling.

Recently my good friend Katie let me share her tenth birthday celebration. Some day she too will remember the love and good feeling of the day even if not the detail. But there was a lot of detail for her this year. She had two major birthday wishes. She wanted her soccer team to beat its archrival in the last game of the year, and she wanted to have her ears pierced.

Last year I attended a couple third grade soccer league games. The little girls were great fun to watch, as they ran up and down the field with their ponytails bouncing. But they didn't run as much as the game requires. They tended to stand around a lot, hoping somebody else would get the ball. They have been raised to be polite and they had not yet learned that some aggression is necessary on the soccer field. Too much politeness there doesn't quite cut it.

This year it is a different story. They are older and faster and much more skillful. And they are more aggressive. They'll actually get in there and fight for the ball. They run at full tilt up and down the field for an hour and don't even breathe hard. It was a great game between two good teams and it ended in a tie that was as almost as good as a win for them. The Rockies weren't any happier the day they won their first game than those girls were that Saturday afternoon.

So that was one gift received. Next came the ears. Well, she already had the ears, but she wanted to have holes punched in them.

Although the piercing of the ears of infants of both sexes has been a religious rite for generations in many other cultures, here in America it is strictly cosmetic. I'm not sure when it became fashionable, but I do remember hearing other young women talking about it years ago. The primitive process they described was not for me. You clipped a clothes pin on the ear lobe and let it stay there long to numb the ear a bit. Then your buddy held an ice cube in back of the ear and punctured the ear lobe with a needle. One hopes that they knew enough to sterilize the needle, but they probably didn't bother. It's not like that any more. It is done by professionals and is quick, easy and clean.

Katie started campaigning for pierced ears when she was six and has maintained fairly steady pressure since. Finally in the fourth grade she came home and announced that "Everybody in my class has pierced ears, even the boys." Her mother, in desperation, made a deal with her. If she would not even say the word "earrings" during the school year, she could have them on her 10th birthday. Katie stuck to her side of the bargain and so did her mother.

On the fateful day I met the entire family at the "earring place". I have seen people face major surgery with less trauma than Katie felt as the time approached. She was excited and she was scared; she wanted it and she didn't want it. Her friends had gone through the process and had survived but that didn't help. "It's your decision," said her mother as she offered, with hope in her voice, the alternative of doing it on her 11th birthday. No way. She climbed into the chair, gritted her teeth and "Ali Kazam" - it was done. Katie grew up quite a bit that day. She discovered something that it takes many of us years to learn. If you want a thing badly enough, you swallow your fear. The athletes call it, "No pain, no gain." It's a battle we all fight. I can relate to it every time I climb on an airplane. If I want to BE someplace badly enough to GET there, I'll fly. My friend learned it at ten.

The birthday was a success. Her soccer team tied its archrival, and she is proudly wearing a pair of golden studs in her ears. Oh to be ten again!