A Gift Of The Moment

Sharlya Gold

Birthdays and presents always go together, but I was a child who liked the surprise of the presents. Holding a gaily-wrapped package with its cascade of ribbons was the most exciting part. The actual gift was always quite ordinary—colored pencils or books or whatever my parents thought I’d like.

        “Your fault,” my best friend Shirley said. “You don’t say what you want. I keep a list on my bedroom door!”

        That wouldn’t work for me. The element of surprise was what I liked best.

        I’d often leaf through the calendar that hung in our kitchen, counting the months until my birthday and worrying that something bad would happen first. During an earthquake, people can fall into great holes and tornadoes sometimes whirl people into the sky and tidal waves could make a whole country disappear! I went to the movies every Saturday and knew such things were real.

        Kids who had their birthday early in the year were lucky; I thought¾ they didn’t have to wait till November like I did. My little brother and I heard about these kids every night on Uncle Whoa Bill’s radio program. For almost thirty minutes, we’d listen to stories and music, and then Uncle Whoa Bill would announce the name of the Birthday Child and where his or her presents were hidden.

        The glory of being singled out by Uncle Whoa Bill was sometimes a topic of discussion. How did Uncle Whoa Bill know it was somebody’s birthday? And how did he know where the presents were? “And,” my brother always wondered, “how does he find out the names of the rooms in the house?”

        My father didn’t have any answers, and at last my mother would say, “Stop breaking your heads! He has his ways, and that’s all there is to it.”

        Although Uncle Whoa Bill was our favorite program, we were also faithful to Little Orphan Annie, Sky King, and Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy. Unfortunately, “our” programs came on near dinnertime, and sometimes Mama called us to the table before they were over.

        We were especially reluctant to miss the last half of Uncle Whoa Bill, but pleading that we could eat later¾by ourselves¾got us nowhere. Having a leisurely, talky dinner was important to my parents. I believe they thought it had a civilizing effect.

        Eating and talking and being together was certainly more important than any radio program, my father said, unless President Roosevelt was going to make a speech. On those nights we had to hurry through dinner so fast I always got a stomachache. Then, we’d sit in the living room and listen to the president as he sat by his fireplace in the White House. My parents would chew over his talk for the rest of the evening—my father, never quite sure if the president meant what he said; Mama, arguing that of course he did, or why say it?

        One night, Mama called us to the table earlier than usual. She didn’t even give my father time to relax with the newspaper and an unwinding drink. She even forgot to tell us to turn off the radio! My brother and I kicked each other under the table and tried not to laugh. That had never happened before, and we could hear every word Uncle Whoa Bill said.

        Most of our meals were seasoned with advice about our elbows¾keep them off the table, please, and our mouths¾chew with them closed, please, but that night the only voice we heard came from the radio. I was listening with all my might when, suddenly, I felt as if I’d been whacked on the head. Uncle Whoa Bill had said my name! My name! But how could that be? My old birthday had come a long time ago, and my new birthday was far away.

        My father laughed. “Why are you sitting there like a lump? Get up and do what Uncle Whoa Bill said!”

        Do? What was I supposed to do? I hadn’t heard anything but my name.

        My brother, laughing his machine-gun laugh, pulled me from my chair. “Uncle Whoa Bill told you to go look in the hall closet!”

        With a pounding heart, I raced to the hall closet, but instead of a present, I found a string looped around the doorknob. A printed sign read, FOLLOW STRING. It snaked around furniture and into the living room. Another sign and another string led me to a cupboard in the kitchen. I tracked the strings and signs through the breakfast nook, the back porch, the bathroom, up to my bedroom, and back into the dining room. And there, under our table, lay a package wrapped in red paper.

        What the present was, I don’t recall. It wasn’t anything compared to the surprises of the evening! Not only had my mother accidentally left the radio on, but my father found the program so interesting, he didn’t even talk!

        Still, something bothered me, so I asked, “Why didn’t Uncle Whoa Bill make me the birthday child on my real birthday?”

        My mother shrugged, “He has a lot of children to think about. Anyway, he called your name, and that’s what counts, right?”

        Her answer didn’t really satisfy me, but there was no point in asking again.

        Still, I thought about it until I finally figured it out. I was pretty sure that parents wrote to Uncle Whoa Bill about their kid’s birthday, and when mine wrote to him, he said November was already full and how about May? My father, always preaching that something is better than nothing, probably advised, “Take it,” and my mother did.

        After that magical night, I gradually lost interest in Uncle Whoa Bill. I’d had my moment of glory and didn’t expect another. But, oh, that moment!  When I heard him say my name, I realized for the first time that I was more than my parent’s daughter, more than my brother’s sister, and more than Shirley’s best friend. I was me¾a separate and distinct person. That sudden¾and enduring¾sense of self was Uncle Whoa Bill’s real gift to the birthday child.

Sharlya Gold is a transplant from California, by way of Mexico. Writing, teaching, gardening, and volunteering make her wonder how she ever held down a full-time librarian’s job. She adds: To our four daughters, I’m Mom. To my husband, wearer of the Forbearance Medal of Honor, I’m Shar. To my Literacy Council students, I am the I-Believe-in-You tutor, and to my friends, I am the nag who keeps at them, saying, What a Great Story, Why Don’t You Write It? Though I acknowledge the aptness of the names, I continually work toward adding another: A Writer of Stories that enable the reader to see the beauty of the world and be open to the possibilities for good that are within us all.

Editor’s footnote: Through Google, I learned that the man who played Uncle Whoa Bill was named Nick Nelson. And, on a chat board, I found this note from Joe F: When I was about four (Los Angeles, early 1940s), I liked a radio program sponsored by the Bullocks department store, hosted by a character called Uncle Whoa Bill. In those days, parents usually monitored their children's listening, so sponsors had to please parents to get at the children. This program featured propaganda in favor of good behavior. The host was named after "Whoa, Bill!" an injunction normally addressed to a horse, but representing what you were supposed to say to yourself when tempted to naughtiness. That is, he was Inhibition personified. The opening jingle, to the tune of My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean, went, pretty nearly:

Good evening. We are the Whoa-Billers.
Of dear Uncle Whoa Bill we sing
And Bullocks, the store that is friendly,
And this is the message we bring:
Whoa, Bill! Whoa, Bill!
How happy we are when we learn to say,
Whoa, Bill! Whoa, Bill!
[last line forgotten]

        And I found Stephen Lodge, who remembered Uncle Whoa Bill. He read Sharlya’s story and replied with a photograph and this anecdote: This story really brought back memories. I also remember hearing my name on my birthday, then following directions and a string before finding my present. My mother wrote in and asked if I could sing on the program. Uncle Whoa Bill answered her letter and invited me to sing on his program, not once, but twice. If I remember correctly, the studio was in Bullocks Department Store building in downtown Los Angeles.