Page 26, Buds Best Years

It was a birthday party to remember. Everyone was in there best clothes. His parents had balloons made that said Happy 5th birthday bud. There balloons were, orange, yellow, blue, red, grey. They were gorgeous.

The them for thee party was trains. Bud had recently watched a documentary on steam engines and became enamored with anything that ran using a steam engine. Steamboats, steam engine trains, steam tractors. When bud got interested in something there was no half was it was all or nothing.

He wore a pair of grey overalls, red handkerchief and red shoes for his birthday party outfit. He was adorable if a little eccentric. But, that's Bud for you and kid with now concept of moderation. "Bud don't you think wearing that train outfit is a little weird" Said Harriet. "What? No way" Bud Said. Ok, whatever" said. "Its your reputation Bud so wear what you want but, I still think its weird". SO bud walked around in his so-called weird outfit for the rest of the day.

Now the birthday cake that was something special, a work of art. It was shaped to look like a steam train. It was perfect in every detail. Down to the cars and caboose. The cake looked so good but, was shaking as he cut into the cake. It tasted as good as it looked. It was a pound cake with chocolate chip frosting died black so the train would look more realistic. It was a cake to remember

The best gift he received was an antique train set given to him by his father. It was of course a steam train with 10 cars and a caboose. It rain on a rather large track which went around the whole living room. It had fake smoke come out of the exhaust pipe. What a treasure

One fun game at the party was a huge piñata shaped in the form of a, you guessed it steam locomotive. All the kids took turns hitting it with a plastic baseball bat. The kids were asked to organize into a single file line. When it was each child's turn to hit the piñata he/she would be blindfolded and spun around until dizzy. And with the plastic bad in had would swing away for 1 minute trying to break open the piñata as much as he/she could. Great fun was had by everyone. It took several trips through the line but, it finally game way and candy was released all over the ground. The parents gather up the candy and put it in bags for the children to take home. Also whole bags of candy were given to the children to take home. The kids adored the candy. Even Bud who was not one to eat candy enjoyed the candy.

The birthday party lasted late into the night since there was no school the next day. Bud's parents had hired a Disk Jockey to MC the party. All the top tunes of the day were played including buds favorite. It was called: Program as you are by The MotherBoards. The MotherBoards were a computer city native band, playing alternative rock. The members were Bob Bus on Guitar and lead vocals, Zelda Thomas on bass, Amy Files on Drums. They had had several top 100 hits and were still going strong after almost a decade on the road. Bob bus was a disgruntled who because tired of what he saw as greed and worthless programming in his chosen field of works so he decided to start the motherBoards without knowing how to sing or play a musical instrument. Yet he was so disgusted with being a computer programmer because he thought as I wrote that the company's he worked for wore more interested in filling their pocket books rather than adding real value to anyone lives.

So one day bob put an add in the computer city world looking musicians who could complete his band. At the auditions a month later Zelda and Amy were the only 2 people to show up. He thought to himself why not hire them so he did and it worked out great. They were both solid musicians who could play alternative rock

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