Welcome to Maoist Orange Cake. Each week one of our Divas posts a thoughtful (but not necessarily serious) essay on whatever calls forth her Voice or strikes her Fancy. We invite you to join us wherever the discussion leads.
Motto of the MOC: Sincere, yes. Serious? Never!

"I would also like to add that ‘Maoist Orange Cake is possibly the best name for a blog ever. Just my twopence." -- The Sixth Carnival of Radical Feminists, 1 October 2007


The Twelfth Carnival of Radical Feminists is up at The Burning Times blog and mentions one of our posts, Helen 'Wheels' Keller, for recommendation. Orangeists spreading our zest!

Saturday, August 4, 2007

Happy Birthday Maggie

1955 was a wonderful year:

Disneyland opened...

"Rock Around The Clock" hailed the beginning of Rock and Roll...

Elvis Presley made his first TV appearance...

The first McDonald's opened...

The Supreme Court ordered the desegregation of public schools "with all deliberate speed."

Mickey Mantel hit his career home run, number 100...

(Speaking of Mickeys)," The Mickey Mouse Club", first premiered...

Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man, ushering in The Civil Rights Movement...

and one of our favorite divas, Maggie Jochild was born!

16 comments:

shadocat said...

From one '55 babe to another.

Maggie Jochild said...

Wow. Got up because I couldn't sleep and found this. You just don't know how good it is to find my birthday remembered.

The family I was born into is now all gone -- two died this year.

How did you know red was my favorite color? And those spirals on the cake, my favorite symbol -- did you notice they go in both directions?

I'm weeping. Thanks so much.

Anonymous said...

Maggie, this year knowing you has been amazing. You have given me someone to think with, and that's a gift beyond compare.

I'm wishing you red, and spirals, and lots and lots of love.

You are the best!

shadocat said...

Maggie,

Glad you liked it! When I was looking for cake pictures, I was so drawn to that one---it was so vibrant and beautiful, modern, yet classic, I just knew it was the one for you. If I was there and could make it for you, I would. Alas, a picture will have to suffice...

I know that there is so much more I could've written; what a talented writer/artist you are, what a friend you've been to me---but you already know all that. What I was trying to say that, like rock and roll, the Mickey Mouse Club, and, yes, Ms. Rosa Parks, you are truly an Original.

Blue said...

My life has been richer for knowing you.

Happy birthday, Mags.

Love,
Blue

Jana C.H. said...

Congrats, Maggie, but surely we're not all baby boomers! I was born in 1954, the peak year of the Baby Boom, and also the year President Eisenhower did not send troops to Vietnam.

My mom said she felt practically sterile with only three kids. She would have had more if she hadn't had to have us by caesarian. We were big babies and she was a little woman.

We have a family joke that she had to sign a contract when we were born that she would worry about us for the rest of our lives, and if she didn't sign we would have to go back. So when she fusses over us now that we're all in our fifties, we just say it's the contract. She certainly doesn't want us to go back now. Freud would love it.

Jana C.H.
Seattle
Saith Martha F.H.: Ovens are for baking, not for cleaning.

little gator said...

I was born in 1957 on Liza Doolittle Day.
(check the lyrics for "just you wait 'enry 'iggins)

All *seven* of us were born by c section.
Only the oldest needed it but VBAC was rare in those days. My mother was advised to quit at 4 but chose to keep going.

My brother missed being born on 5/5/55 by *one day*

shadocat said...

gator; Is it the 17th or the 20th? (I was a roving cockney woman in my high school production---alas, I had no songs(sigh)...

Anonymous said...

Happy belated birthday, Maggie!

(This shows me up for not checking this blog daily. Shame.)

I'm younger than most of you lot, it seems: born in '72, about a month before the Watergate break-in.

little gator said...

the 20th

Kellan said...

Maggie, I wish you a very happy (belated) birthday!

Should I mention that I was born in 1982, or would that be a good way to get banned from this community as nothing but a whippersnapper?

Maggie Jochild said...

Kellan, age is not a perquisite here, and you remain most welcome. Indeed, some of us are just now finding out each other's ages. However, you MUST be willing to eat Orange Cake!

Jana C.H. said...

Maggie, I think you mean
"prerequisite", not "perquisite".

Saith John Gay:
If you at an Office solicit your Due,
And would not have Matters neglected;
You must quicken the Clerk with the Perquisite too,
To do what his Duty directed.
Or would you the Frowns of a Lady prevent,
She too has this palpable Failing,
The Perquisite softens her into Consent:
That Reason with all is prevailing.

Jana C.H.
Seattle

Maggie Jochild said...

Jana, I was using it in the sense of "not limited to just one group", which, when I looked it up, is slightly different from the third meaning of "Something claimed as an exclusive right". But I really didn't mean prerequisite, either. So -- some other term, then. If anyone knows what I was trying to think of, go ahead and post it.

Jana C.H. said...

Maggie, I've never heard of the definition that you give. I'll look it up. Thanks for improving my vocabulary. The meaning of tip, bribe, or special privilege seems to be the most common, though nowadays we usually shorten it to "perk".

I probably wouldn't have mentioned it at all if it hadn't given me a chance to quote John Gay. Here's a link to the script of "Beggar's Opera."

http://www.uoregon.edu/~rbear/beggar.html

Jana C.H.
Seattle
Saith John Gay: No Woman would ever marry, if she had not the Chance of Mortality for a Release.

Anonymous said...

Gah! I was away from home/computer for a few weeks, and am still playing catch up. Here I missed the birthday of someone who has become one of my favorite writers! Jeez Louise, kid, you've made me laugh, think, and think some more. You've taught me, too.

I'm glad our "paths" have crossed. Happy belated birthday.