Today is April Fool’s Day, but then I’ve never liked April Fool’s.  Some of the tricks played on this day seemed mean and others were downright cruel.  However, I have a funny story for you that kind of qualifies as April Fool’s, Tabares Style.  I need to begin at the beginning and that would be way back in the 70’s.  Let me take you down memory lane.

All in the Family was a popular show in the 70’s and, if you are old enough to remember the show, you’ll know that Archie Bunker was a cheapskate.  One episode had him purchasing a cake for his wife’s birthday and coming home with a cake that said, “Happy Bar Mitzvah Irving!”  Why?  Because the customer failed to pick it up and it was half price.  All during the episode, people laughed and said, “Who’s Irving?”

My family had a great sense of humor and so for my mother’s birthday that year, we (on purpose) bought her a cake that said, “Happy Bar Mitzvah Irving!”

Run a bit further down Memory Lane and you’ll come to the early 90’s when my dd was a little girl.  We told her about this family story and she loved the idea.  She always said she wanted a cake that said, “Happy Bar Mitzvah Irving!” but we thought she was kidding.

Our dd is away at college in her junior year.  Every year on her Spring Break, she and friends have a missions trip somewhere.  Last year was San Diego.  This year was Tampa.  So she is almost always either 1800 miles away at college or on a missions trip during her birthday.

This year, on March 13th, she was scheduled to drive back 12hrs on a bus from Tampa to Nashville.  She told us that the director of the organization she went with was planning something for her birthday.  One of the activities was to have all 40 of her friends sing Happy Birthday to her each hour of the trip.  They ended up singing in several languages and using many different arrangements of the song.

I contacted the director ahead of time, explained the story behind the cake and asked him to help me provide the cake for everyone on her birthday.  He emailed back that he would be happy to help and gave me the number of a bakery near where they would stop for lunch.  I ordered the cake and verified all the details of the cake.

I called her for her birthday after she should have had lunch and the cake.  She was so excited and everyone had a great time with it.  After all, this was a Christian ministry team on the way back from a missions trip eating birthday cake that said, “Happy Bar Mitzvah Irving!”  Or did it?  This story gets even more bizarre when you hear the punch line.

My dd mentioned that the cake was misspelled.  I was a bit worried that the bakery wouldn’t spell Bar Mitzvah correctly. It’s not a popular spelling word.  To my surprise, Bar Mitzvah wasn’t the word they misspelled.

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Happy Bar Mitzvah Erving!

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My dd said the cake was actually fairly ugly.  Plain white icing with several GREEN roses.  I had asked them to put a few flowers on the cake with green writing.  Everyone said the cake was delicious and a fun time was had by all!

I regret that I don’t have a picture to show you.  I had asked them to take pictures and they did, just none of the infamous cake.    I do have good news, though.  My dd has asked that this become a tradition on her birthday.  Each year we’ll spell Irving a different way.

Happy Bar Mitzvah Urving

Happy Bar Mitzvah Earving

Happy Bar Mitzvah Yving…

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