Jordan Sonnenblick - The Boy Who Failed Dodgeball

In my almost-twelve years on this planet, Id like to think Ive learned a few things. So Ive decided to share my hard-earned wisdom with all you other young people out there. Lets start with the best piece of advice I can possibly give you: Dont be born on a major national holiday. Sure, its great that you will never have to go to school on your birthday. But being born on the Fourth of July nearly killed me.

Multiple times.

It started before I was even born. My dad, who is a psychiatrist, got drafted to be an army doctor in the Vietnam War just after my parents found out my mom was pregnant. By the time I came around, my mom, my dad, and my big sister, Lissa, lived on a big military base in Missouri called Fort Leonard Wood. My mom went into labor late at night on July 3, 1969, so my dad called the hospital. There were only two doctors on the staff who delivered babies, and one was off base for the big July 4 weekend. The other was at the bases massive holiday fireworks party, super drunk.

Anyway, my dad and a couple of the other base doctors found the drunk guy, threw him in the shower, and gave him a whole lot of coffee. When my mom was ready to give birth, he was mostly just incredibly hungover. My mom saw that he looked kind of sick and shaky, so she made a deal with him. She said that if he delivered me safe and sound, she would name me after him.

His name was Ted. Not Theodore, just Ted.

I guess he didnt drop me or anything, because my parents named me Jordan Ted Sonnenblick.

Then there was the biggest July 4 ever: the Bicentennial. On July 4, 1976, when I turned seven, the country went all in on the grandest birthday celebration in its history. In Staten Island, New York, where I have lived since I was thirteen months old, kids painted every fire hydrant red, white, and blue. (The older kids let me paint two white stripes on the one at the end of my block!) New York Harbor, from the Statue of Liberty all the way to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, was packed with hundreds of tall sailing ships, big fancy yachts, fireboats, barges, and small speedboats. There were even dozens of US Navy ships. It was like a gigantic, very wet traffic jam.

A couple of days before the big event, teams of workers started to hang the largest American flag ever made between the two towers of the bridge. My richest friend, Steven Vitale, had a house on a big hill looking over the harbor, so my sister and I went over there to play with Steven and his sister and watch the flag go up. The girls were playing Hula-Hoop at the bottom of Stevens long, steep driveway while Steven and I took turns trying to skateboard down from the street to the house. This was kind of challenging, because the driveway wasnt perfectly smooth. It had lots of sharp pieces of gravel sticking up from the cement. Steven went inside for a drink break, but I decided to make one more run.

Somehow, just after I reached top speed, I lost my balance, went flying over the front of the board, and landed facedown.

My forehead must have hit one of those sharp pebbles. I think I was knocked out for a second, but it didnt hurt or anything. I stood up and started walking toward the girls, who took one look at me and ran screaming into the house. I couldnt figure out what was wrong until I felt something warm and wet dripping into my right eye.

Stevens mom came out, took me inside, and washed out the new dent in my forehead. By the time she was done bandaging me up, I was feeling pretty dizzy, so she took me to Stevens room, led me to the bed, and told me to rest. But Stevens room had a huge picture window that faced the water, and after a while, practice fireworks started going off.

If youve never gotten banged on the head, cut up, and knocked out, then locked in a room with the rockets red glare and bombs bursting in air outside, I dont recommend it as a pleasure activity.

Two days later, I was feeling mostly recovered, aside from the intense itch that was coming from under the gauze pad just above my eyebrow. My whole family went to the roof of the building where my dads office was. The building was only a block from the harbor, so we had the best view in town for the parade of ships and the fireworks display. Everybody got plates and filled them up with hamburgers and hot dogs. As we settled in to eat with all my dads doctor friends and their kids, a question popped into my head that I just had to ask somebody.

For as long as I could remember, all the grown-ups in my family had told me that the July Fourth fireworks were for me. But there had never been a gazillion sailing ships, a two-hundred-foot-tall flag on a bridge, or a huge, official citywide fireworks display before. Had I done something special to deserve this? It was important to know, so Id remember to do it again next year. I didnt know what bicentennial meant, and it was all pretty confusing. I turned to my dads friend Dr. Accettola and asked, Why is July Fourth such a big deal this year?

Because this year is the two hundredth, he replied.

But Im only seven! I exclaimed.

That was when it hit me. The celebration wasnt in my honor at all. I took my plate behind a big brick chimney, sat with my back resting against the bricks, and cried.

All this time, I had thought I was famous. But really, I was just a little nobody.

Do yourself a favor. If you dont want a lifetime of danger and heartbreak, be born on some random Tuesday in October. Or maybe March. March is nice.

Because heres the thing about being born on July 4. It teaches you to love fireworks. To wish for bigger and bigger fireworks. And to hope that one day, youll be such a big deal that the big fireworks are for you.

I cant remember a time when I didnt love Evel Knievel, the greatest stuntman of all time. He isnt just the greatest stuntman. Hes, like, the guy who invented the whole job of stuntman. Before Evel Knievel, guys who crashed their motorcycles, broke multiple bones, and ended up in a coma were just considered unlucky. Evel Knievel turned the near-fatal motorcycle accident into an art form. By the time I was in kindergarten, practically every kid in my class wanted to be Evel Knievel. It looked like so much fun! He always wore a red-white-and-blue jumpsuit, and there were always thousands of cheering, screaming fans lined up to watch his stunts. Wherever Evel went, the fireworks really were for him.

I remember being at my Aunt Iriss house in New Jersey when I was five, gathered around with all my cousins to wait for Evel Knievels famous rocket jump across Snake River Canyon in Idaho. It was so incredible! The jump distance was more than a quarter of a mile! I didnt know what a quarter of a mile was, but it sounded like a lot. Evel got lowered into his custom Skycycle rocket by crane, two assistants strapped him into his seat and put his helmet on, and then we all held our breath.