The Starting Line

I was a late comer to the whole baby boom generation. Being born during the cold war, on an Army post may have been a clue as to what my life would bring to me.

The start itself was a struggle. My parents had given up hope of having children, for a decade it just didn't happen for them. Their life was built around the Army, moving every couple of years, poker parties and making home brew. They were stationed in Seattle at the time, my father the commanding officer of a missile base pointing at the U.S.S.R.

Does it sound like a movie plot yet?

One day little ol' me decided to show up. My Momma didn't realize she was in labor and I guess I almost missed the whole Army hospital thing entirely. My father, who had been through two wars and dealt with the daily threat of a nuclear attack, was panicking. But then, he really was a big gruff teddy bear of a man anyway.

I have often wondered what that drive to the hospital was like. They lived on post at the time, so it must have been a site to see the C.O. driving like a madman to get his wife there.

So into this world I came. Uneventful in the actual labor (rumor has it lasting only about 6 hours), the first born child arrived. The only child arrived. With a head of thick black hair which was promptly lost about a week later. I guess even then I had something to prove.

Unfortunately for all involved, my mother decided that she needed some more attention and had a seizure right before we were set to journey back home. She knew it was coming on, she was sitting on the bed holding me, waiting for the wheelchair ride to the front door.

Momma: Someone grab Margie, I think I am gonna faint.

Someone grabs Margie. Sometime later a nurse is explaining to my Daddy and my godmother that my Momma is staying for a while.

Gruff Army Nurse: So Major, do you want to leave your daughter here or take her with you?

Wicked Godmother: Of course he will take her home!!

Now I must mention here that my godmother is actually a wonderful person. Her and my "Uncle George" (my godfather whose name is not George) had known my parents for a long time, before the Army split the Air Corp into the Air Force.

I guess I should also mention at this point that my father had left home at the age of sixteen and knew nothing about babies. That certainly wasn't a class in his basic training. Fortunately for me they did live on base. I was close to the Calvary.

So off my father trotted with me. According to him the hardest part was trying to figure out how to sterilize a baby bottle without touching it. You see, the nurses told him how to sterilize it and told him he wasn't to touch a sterilized bottle. Being a good Army man he followed instructions. I guess that was about the time the nurses decided daily check-ins were needed, commanding officer or not. I am forever in their debt.