2000-09-17 - 19:16 MDT

September 17, 2000

Mixed Occasions

Bittersweet day today, it was our youngest son's birthday and a farewell to his youngest girl, the usual ice cream, cake and various drinks - - no booze, but everthng else. It has been a happy day and a sad one too as well as stirring my memories.

He was born this month, in Tampa, 1951 -- back when Volvos looked liked minature Mercurys, at that time a Mercury could be recognized from about as far away as you could see it. Our car was a 1937 Chevvy four door which threw a rod just as Heather had to head for the hospital to give birth to him. A friend took us there and it all worked out okay. The Tampa area where I first saw salt water and found that after all I do like seafood and that what I didn't like was stale, stinky sea food. It is a semi-tropical place and the outlying town we lived in was pretty sparse in people and heavy in Palmettos and Palm trees of various kinds -- the fancy ones probably planted by eager developers, along with partially erected steel work for a projected hotel by optomistic people, before the 1929 stock market's descent into hell. The little town we lived in at the beginning was at the north end of Old Tampa Bay and in between the houses was wild growth. Where yards abutted the areas were clear. Of course there were rattle snakes, Palmetto bugs and other creepie crawlies new to us, the ever present mosquitos and very new and bothersome were the no-see-ums -- the almost invisible gnats small enough to fly through the mesh of a screen door. Their bites were not painful, just bothersome. Remembering about becoming accustomed to the climate and glorying in having a second son was a fine experience for me as well as an educating one. Seeing him grow from a bump in Heather's tummy to a lively happy ten year old was grand for us also.

Heather and I are always happy to have the nuclear family around us. There was a pair of great grand daughters playing peacefully, taking a stroll with an adult to the pond on the premises to feed the ducks, and quietly playing at the apartment. So of course it has been a day of celebration for all.

The sadness came in when we thought about this being the last time we will see youngest son's youngest daughter, except very occasionally when they come to town. Her husband has taken on preaching in Boise, Idaho and she will have duties there also. We have not seen as much of them as we would like because he has been finishing up college and she has been busy working. So the farewells were bid with smiling faces and hugs but with tears in our hearts. She and my youngest daughter are the outriding sentinels of the family and there are empty spots at the festive table.

Such things make Heather and I realize that, damn, we are old folks for sure when we watch our youngest son steel himself to bid goodbye to his youngest all grown up daughter. Are those milestones along the road or millstones around our necks ? Either way we are dragging a bit and can't run footraces any more.

That is one of the things encountered when there is family, those bittersweet mixed occasions.

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