The family postponed our annual Christmas get-together until yesterday because I had spent December in ICU and Harborview Medical Center followed by rehab in Stafford Healthcare at Ridgemont Terrace, a nursing home located next door to where I live when I'm not out somewhere falling down on my head.
The kids showed up with exotic foods and yummy desserts and we surprised Phyllis with a party to celebrate her March 7 birthday. A humongous chocolate cake with candles (you have to ask her how many…I'm not tellin'…)and a bunch of cards, some with insulting, disgusting messages. One prompted a sing-along and our Happy Birthday song to Phyllis showed up on "youtube". (Think kitties and what they might say).
I always try to remember what was going on the day my kids were born. In the wee hours of the day Phyllis was born, March 7, 1951, I was already up, ironing a blue chambray shirt for CR to wear to work in the shipyard in Bremerton, where he was employed in pre-Boeing days. I hung up the shirt and turned off the iron. (At least I hope I did. I was somewhat distracted with counting minutes between contractions.)
I woke up Charlie-Rook when they were down to ten minutes apart. He bolted from the bed and said, "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
There was little time to get into that discussion and I was already headed out the door with my little overnight bag and noticed it was lightly snowing. Daffodils and crocuses were blooming in the flower beds and they looked so funny coming up through the snow. Nancy, who is two years older than Phyllis, was already staying with her Auntie Anne in anticipation of the forthcoming birth. So all we had to do that morning was concentrate on having a baby.
We were living in East Bremerton and had to get across the Manette Bridge and through downtown to reach the Puget Sound Naval Memorial Hospital located north of Charleston,on 6th Street and Marine View Drive. Its name wasn't changed to Harrison Hospital until a few kids later.
Charlie-Rook, a law abiding gentleman, put on the brakes for the light at 6th and Naval and we began to skid sideways. It was 5 a.m. and there were no cars in sight at that hour and I yelled, "Don't stop! The baby's coming!" By then CR had corrected the skid but we had skidded through the intersection to the other side of Naval. We got to the hospital a few minutes later and CR ran into the emergency waiting area to get someone to help. I was settled into a wheelchair, obviously in the final stages of labor. Charlie Rook took a minute to call one of his friends who rushed over to the hospital but not before Phyllis was born.
They were wheeling me out of delivery and heading for a room when CR and two of his high school buddies, all wearing orange and black Central Kitsap High School lettermen jackets, came up and the nurse cracked, "Okay, which one of you jocks is the daddy?" Charlie-Rook was the first in our graduating class to get married and begin having a family. I think his friends considered themselves Godfathers to our kids.
I don't remember where I found the name "Phyllis" for this second precious baby, but I gave her the middle name of Louise which I thought was the middle name of CR's sister, Anne, who lived the closest to us and baby sat our kids for many years. It wasn't until many years later I learned Anne's middle name was Lucille.
Oh, well, it didn't seem to hurt her psyche and I never told Auntie Anne about my boo-boo.
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