august birthdays
(Translation, Yugoslavia)
Seems to be many people were born in the last week of august in the fifties. That's probably because the nine months before that week is the 29th of november, the Republic day of the SFRY, i.e. the day of 1943 when The Party decided to flip the bird to both Americans, Brits and Soviets (OK, both three of them) and declare an independent state, screw your 50:50 deals and plans to split the country.
Heroic past aside, by the mid-fifties it was a day of just celebration, where numerous piglets would be sacrificed to the altar of the revolution, and the good brandy would flow. Which is why we had so many birthdays at that time, only nine months later.
which was usually a four day affair - connected to the nearest weekend - and which coincided with the time when pigs were slaughtered and the beginning of the winter marathon (of eating and drinking).
Starting with 1974, we celebrated these in a little forest just out of town, less than 1km off kinta. There were just two of us birthday guys, me and Dženk; next year there were five of us. Kept the tradition alive until 1980.
Dženk is exactly one year younger than I. Magi is two years and a couple of days (nope, four). Over time, we found a few more people, including a pair of twins (Brata and sister), who were all born in the last nine days of august.
So we had this string of birthday parties, most of the years between 1974 and 1980, in the little forest just out of town, behind the gas filling station (for english challenged: not gasoline, it was gas - propane-butane mix). We'd gather around sunset, usually with four crates of beer (that's 20 bottles of 0.5l each per crate - counts as 30 of 12 oz bottles), six kilo loaves of bread, few kilos of sausage and some onions, and would start a fire. By the time the darkness would set, most of the gang would be there. At least two of us would have our actual birthdays that week; sometimes it was five or six of us, including a pair of twins. In the beginning, we had guests from afar - 1974, Rudolf, Lajna, 1975 two guys from Germany. At best times, the party would grow to maybe thirty people, and would always have at least half of them stay until dawn. The last one was 1980, when Go was one year old. Next year, I was in the vojska; by 1983 it was pretty much impossible to get the gang together.
Mentions: 09-V-1974., Defence and last days, 22-VIII-1974., 23-VIII-1974., 23-XI-1974., 23-VIII-1975., 26-VIII-1976., 23-VIII-1977., 26-VIII-1978., 25-VIII-1980., 02-V-1992., Brata Maljković, Gavrilo Taroški (Gavra), Gorana Sredljević (Go), Gradivoj Jankulov (Dženk), kinta, Margita Gunaroši (Magi), Melanija Merćep (Lajna), Pali Vereši, Rudolf Ochsner, Šaki, vojska, Živa Ravajlović, in serbian