Learning To Drive

I truly had no idea what my parents went through while teaching 5 kids how to drive a car.  From my point of view it was an exciting and fun-filled time.  I was approaching the age of being able to drive and I was hungry, I was eager, I was excited to get that license.  Not only that, I was the envy of all my friends, because I was learning to drive in a 1969 Ford Country Squire station wagon.  For those of you not familiar with this vehicle, it was quite possibly one of the largest, bulkiest, way uncool vehicles for a teenager to be seen in on the planet.  My dads’ car had a standard transmission, so we were saving that little experience for a later time, so I had just one choice for my training vehicle.  I don’t actually remember that much about the actual process of learning how to drive.  I am sure I just got in and was driving like a pro in no time at all.

Birth

I was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the University of Minnesota Medical Center.  My father was in the university’s Dental School at the time.  I was child number four of five that my parents ended up with.  My sister was the oldest and then my parents got in a bit of a rut with four straight boys.  I don’t clearly remember the day I was born, but I am told there was some drama involved as I made my appearance into this world.  Let me just start by saying, my poor dear Mother.  Evidently I weighed 10 pounds 11 ounces at the time of my birth.  For much of my life this statistic didn’t have a whole lot of meaning to me.  Dang, 11 pounds is nothing.  Those 10 pound dumbbells that people use for lifting weights are pretty small and easy to lift.  In fact I always have to go to the 15, 20, 25 lbs dumbbells, because the 10’s are too light.  What’s the big deal? 

Family Dinner Time

"What's in this Mom?" my son would say as we sat down to the dinner table.

"Just eat it, I am not going to tell you what is in everything we eat." came the reply.

"I don't like it!" my daughter would add.

"We have never had this before; how do you know you don't like it?" I would chime in, not wanting to be left out of the nightly ritual.  My two year old would even make out the words, "Don't like this" before she had even seen any food.   Was I that bad?  It is then that I uttered those famous words that every parent has used at one time or another. "You just wait 'til you have kids of your own."