 |
July 29th
|
 |
 |
Tree: Gram & Papa/Kittie & John/Eileen & Donald/John
| Our John was always willing and eager to get involved in almost anything that was exciting, provoking, demanding and rewarding. He grew up playing football--Pop Warner Football, High School Football, football with Joe Namath at that star's football camp (where the great star actually played with the kid campers and had John center for him). He was a very young man when he sang in modern operetta at St. Mark's School and quite young when he took a parachute jump from an airplane. He had a cooking program on local TV and acted as master of ceremonies and also did some cooking. He and a female friend were once attacked by a mugger thief on the Boston Common and John gave as good or better than he was supposed to get from the mugger. We should have known that all this would happen because of his birth. It was a Saturday morning close to his expected time. At about 8 AM I began to feel some cramps--nothing very intense but there they were. I didn't want to rush into anything premature so I went for a rest on the bed to see where this would go. It was still there but fairly calm until about 10 AM when it intensified somewhat. Donald said that we had better get going to the hospital because it was a good half-hour's drive from our garden apartment. I didn't want to rush but we brought Terry next door to our kind neighbor who had children Terry's age and had agreed to babysit Terry for the hospital trip we knew would be coming up. By the time we got going it was pushing 11 AM and things intensified en route to the hospital. Upon our arrival I was unable to sit in the wheelchair they brought to the car. I had to walk or lie stretched out. I made it into the examining room rapidly and John was born by Noon. Donald and I knew that he knew what he wanted and that was to be out and about. He was not about to make a stupid long story of it. The nursing staff had seldom seen such a rapid, triumphant arrival. They were full of praise and recognition. |
