Once upon A story.......

I
It was a very hot season, that summer 23 years ago. Her brother, mother and I pretty much lived in the one air-conditioned bedroom we had.  Nine month pregnant women do not like heat much.  I cooked on the grill outside, or got oodles of carry-out.  It was that kind of season.  Hot, humid, uncomfortable, sticky.  The bathroom was only 80% remodeled.  The shower worked, but the linen cabinet I had ordered had not arrived.  I remember those things.  I remember the baby.... that we were waiting for.  I worried.

Little did I know of the girl who would grow up and go searching for the DaVinici code.

I had no way of knowing, then, how a man's life can change in so short a time.

The time was 2:50 am.  When her mother woke me.  I called Uncle Mike to come watch the boy. I threw the hospital bag in the car.  Her mother could not sit any longer.  I propped her up as best as possible in the rear seat... It was a Ford.  I remember.  And I zipped up the lake road as fast as I could the eight miles to Theda Clark Medical.  I remember that well,, but I could have no idea that I was traveling with the girl who would, beyond doubt.... prove the existence of the Loch Ness Monster.

"It is there!" she would cry out.... and the world would be astonished.






But that would happen much later.  What I remember was running into the hospital to find help to extricate her mother from the back of theat Ford.  I did succeed.  That I remember. and that her mother could not sit in the wheelchair that we somehow propped her up kneeling in the chair.  The orderly did not push the chair.  I did.  I remember.

I could not have known, then, that she would grow to possess fantastic diplomatic skills and travel to France and solve most of the pressing political questions of the day.
"Well, Dad, just those that really needed solving."

She would dawdle with small talk.  But I could not know that then.  What I remember is that I fretted that the Doctor would not be there, but that somehow he was in residence at that ungodly hour.  I remember he said, "It's a girl.  Cut the cord, Dad," and handed me a scissors.  It was 4:10am.  That I will never, ever forget.

Dear Girl....I wish, today, that I could offer you some wise words of wisdom, some pithy saying to whimiscally realte how much you have enriched my life...how I think of you everyday.
But all I can come up with is

"Don't always look for happiness in the bottom of a pint glass.....but never neglect checking it out once in a while."AND.......................









...........life may not be a bowl of cherries.....so just look for the biggest one you can find!!!

Happy Birthday!!!!