One Score and 15 Years Ago...

...the little state of Delaware was in the midst of the worst winter snowstorm in its recorded history (up until then). And on the front page of the Delaware State News the next day there was a story about how the stork had donned snowshoes to make a special delivery. Alas, my 15 minutes of fame were squandered at birth.

I don’t know the actual accumulation total, but I don’t think it was over 50 inches. Whatever it was, it was more than an entire winter seasons worth. My parents were really snowed in. The road between our house and the nearest town was bisected by a drift at least 10 feet tall. And when my father called for help, the road maintenance yard dispatcher told him that he had 3 snowplows stuck in the town on the other side of the drift that desperately needed a chain to free themselves. My dad had a chain and volunteered to walk the 2 miles into town to help free the stuck snowplows. And after slogging through 2 miles of snow with 50 lbs of chain over his back, he got to town to find that the plows were gone. (In a strange twist of fate, the dispatcher died several years later and my father is sure it had nothing to do with the way he cursed him that afternoon.) On the long cold slog back home, my father saw the bouncing light of a snowmobile coming through a field. He flagged the rider down to find a neighbor. Who knew anyone in Delaware owned a snowmobile? After explaining his predicament, the neighbor volunteered to help and gave Dad a ride back home where they bundled my mother up and stuck her on the back of the snowmobile. And then the snowmobile wouldn’t start. Mom went back in the house while my father and the kindly neighbor spent the next 2 hours wrenching on the snowmobile to make it run again. Finally, with a sled hung off the back for my father, the made their way into the little town to meet a waiting ambulance. Somewhere along they way they had lost Dad because he wasn’t on the sled when they got there.

Shortly after they got to the hospital my poor mother, who was already 2 weeks overdue, stopped having contractions. She distinctly remembers looking pleadingly into the doctor’s eyes and saying, “You have to do something. I have to have this baby. Too many people have done too much to get me here.” Around 5:00 AM the following morning, she got her wish.

Happy Birthday to me!