Readers, so many of you are coming to know my mother and, as you’ve found, to know her is to become her friend! She is easy to meet and always has been. There are a number of contributions she will continue to make to this blog, stories she wants to tell and stories I want told and the stories are always full of human warmth and richness. This is the way her newspaper column was and the community in Abilene loved it.
She also has an unrevealed talent that I think you’ll enjoy: she’s an accomplished painter! I’d like to give you a sampling of some saws that she has painted, but this is just a brief beginning. I need to photograph more of her pictures, most on canvas but some on items like milk cans, and will see about creating a picture gallery for her works. For now, the saws:
Happy Birthday, Mom!
Posted 1 year, 5 months ago at 1:44 pm. 13 comments
Just when she thought she could hide out and avoid anyone finding out, her brother comes to the embarrassing rescue and tells the whole world:
It’s Viki Horan’s Birthday!!!
We have lost track, but her age is somewhere in the early 20’s. Or, was that the decade in which you were born…
Happy Birthday, Sit! Join in gang!!!
Posted 1 year, 6 months ago at 1:32 pm. 21 comments
What is it about February 12th? I opened the paper this morning and the theme of the day just jumped out at me. Let me put the evidence in front of you and you see if you can find the theme:
Today is Abe Lincoln’s 200th birthday.
Today is Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday.
Today is the NAACP’s 100th birthday.
Today is Bill Russell’s 75th birthday.
Okay, reader, these are the puzzle pieces. What is the blog theme for February 12th?
Posted 1 year, 6 months ago at 11:50 am. 12 comments
At precisely 4:54 PM, PST, the Hake clan will celebrate the glorious birth of our daughter precisely nineteen years earlier. She was due Christmas Day, but after acting like she was going to be right on time at Uncle Charlie’s Christmas dinner, she decided to hang out another four days at the spa. I mean, it was winter outside – or, at least what passes for winter in Northern California – and the water was so nice and warm. I mean, a kid could hang out there til Summer, right?
Now, that brought us to an interesting question: If she were born on the 31st and we stayed into the 1st, would the insurance company charge us a deductible for just 1989, or the deductible for 1989 and 1990? Couldn’t believe the answer; two deductibles! Doctors and insurance companies weren’t always on the same page back then, either, so the doctor told us he would induce rather than let that happen. He said Carly was ready to come out, anyway. She claimed she wasn’t ready quite yet and that we should all mind our own business.
But, around 9:00 the morning of December 29th, it all became a moot point when Carol went into labor. Having already had one kid, she was cool as a cucumber and said she would tell me when the right time to go to the hospital was. Around 3:30, she said it was time. Having been around her easy attitude all day, I sauntered around getting things together for the car – when she told me to hurry my ass up, didn’t I get that it was time?!!
Thank God the traffic wasn’t worse than it was. We got to the hospital at 4:00 and they said that the way Carol looked they were going to dispense with a lot of the paperwork and get her to the delivery room right away. Zip, zoom, we are up there and they tell her she is dilated four and that it won’t be long. She asked if she could have the pain blocker and they checked her again. She was dilated ten! They told her to get ready for that natural childbirth that she hadn’t sought!
Well, they had the neatest machine at the hospital attached to the mom’s head. It showed what the imagery was of the mind as the mother entered the birth process. I have that image today of her first impression of Carly:
Carol said it felt like she rode in on an elephant! I asked a woman about what childbirth felt like once and she told me that it was like passing a Volkswagen – and she wasn’t talking about traffic! Essentially, that doctor sat down there with a catcher’s mitt and caught that little late Christmas gift as she barreled out. None of this “Push, push, push!!” urging I always see on TV.
Actually, this picture is of Carly taken yesterday with her fiancée. They went to Great America and took a ride on Valerie, which Carly says is the nicest elephant she’s ever ridden. Like she rides an elephant every Thursday.
My, they do grow up so quickly! It really does seem like yesterday…
Any great birth stories, Moms?
Posted 1 year, 8 months ago at 12:59 pm. Add a comment
