Where were you......................................

26 years ago today?

Good Morning and Happy Easter everybody. I have been anticipating this day for awhile. About 40 days now. I gave up pizza for lent. That may not have been too bright of me. One I do like pizza. A lot. Two the PQ and I usually have pizza for dinner on Fridays in Lent as we can get it with cheese, onions, and mushrooms to avoid meat. Its not that hard for me to avoid meat on Fridays as I like fish, clam chowder, shrimp, etc but for the wife, not so easy as she hates seafood. But I have missed having pizza.

26 years ago today I was in Irving Community Hospital outside Dallas, Texas for the birth of my first child. I remember the discussions about a name while my wife was pregnant. She wanted a nice normal name for our child. We talked about naming him after me if we had a boy but I remember the hassles it caused with my older brother being named after my dad once he got older. Calls for one or the other, mail, etc. And I didn't want that. I wanted to give him a name that stood out, a name that had a proud history. Like Marcus Aurelius. Great Roman emperor, proud name, flows trippingly off the tongue. My wife was not so keen on that. He was named David William instead. Lets just say I didn't win any round of the naming wars with our 3 kids. David is my middle name and I have always liked that name. William was my grandfather's name who had died a little before the pregnancy.

I did not win any of the naming wars that occurred with all of our kids. Of course if I had we would have ended up with kids named Marcus Aurelius, Thomas Aquinas, and Lisa for their names instead of David, Patrick and Sarah. So maybe I didn't lose either. Neither did they.

Anyway, David was born early today 26 years ago. 26 years. Sure doesn't feel that long ago when I think back. One of things we keep finding as we pack stuff are old photos of the kids from when they were young. Some really cute ones. It makes you think, really brings back memories when you look at them.

David was a really good kid. Quiet and liked to read a lot. Played video games, was a good athlete, and very good in math. We thought he might go to college as a math major. He also surprised us all by trying out for and joining the madrigal singers in high school. The madrigal singers dress up in Renaissance style costumes and perform a capella in public performances. There is usually around 10 or 12 of them in total. David was never one to perform in public so that really surprised us. But he really enjoyed it and grew into it. From his sophomore through senior years he was a member and we could tell how much he loved doing it.

After high school he didn't want to go to college, at least for a while. So he took a job at a local restaurant run by the son of a family from Wisconsin who also had a restaurant up there. A bit later he and a buddy went up to Wisconsin and ran the restaurant up there for a few years. Not too bad for a kid only 20 years old. He stayed up there 3 years before coming back to his mother (who was always sad when he went away) and I (who was not so sad when his kids moved out). He got a job working in the Clerk of the Courts office for the county which is where his mother has been for the past 20+ years. He did very well there but about 18 months ago was laid off due to budget cuts. None of his bosses wanted to lose him but the personnel policy at the time dictated he was low man on the totem pole. Even the Court Clerk wanted to keep him and has asked my wife numerous times since then how he was doing and also if he would come back because he would love to rehire him.

But David landed on his feet. While all this was going on the county emergency communications department (911) was looking to hire some people on and they gave first preference to people who had recently been laid off. My wife's sister has been working there for almost 25 years and is a pretty high muck-a-muck now. She told him to sign up and take the interview. He did very well and was hired. Did extremely well in training and they were very happy to have him. 911 is a good place for him. David is generally a very calm person, unlike his father in many ways. He has a very dry wit that I enjoy so much. He loves to see the little foibles in our lives, point out our idiosyncracies. He makes me laugh.

So Happy Birthday David, heir to my (miniscule) fortune. You bring great joy to your mother and I.