Historic Children

Saturday. A beautiful and 58-degree morning, ending a wonderfully-restful night. I slept so soundly, I awakened with my left earlobe "asleep" from lying on it - with the outer part folded over my auditory canal - for such a long period. My left shoulder ached slightly, tight from lack of movement during sleep.

I got Sarah up early, so she would be on time for an appointment at the Julian Smith Casino at 8. While she was bathing, I read the paper and threw together a cool-lookin' breakfast for her: OJ, sauteed boiled redskin potatoes, scrambled egg topped with sharp cheddar, a sausage patty, fresh pineapple chunks, and three tablespoons of Thursday's chili. Mmmm.

"What's with the chili?", Boo asked.

I told her about going downtown to Mother's Restaurant in Oxford when I was in college - usually not long before they started serving lunch - and ordering the manly selection: "steak, eggs, potatoes and toast", knowing that would not be enough, and adding a bowl of chili. I suppose this foreshadowed the salsa-with-eggs sensibility that became rampant in the late 70s. I know it works for me. Boo ate all but one bite of egg, a forkful of taters, two bites of sausage, and a teaspoon of chili. That, and a pot of coffee became my breakfast.

I read and worked around the house until I went to get Sarah at 10:30. She was pleased to be told while there that she will have completed her assignments at the Casino by tomorrow afternoon. I dropped her at Janice's, and picked up Mackenzie for a few hours of sightseeing. I went home with Mackenzie to change her diaper, check my voicemail, get my cell phone, and answer emails. When we were ready to head out, my first stop was going to be Anna's and Ed's, but I decided to see if Pook wanted to hang out with us for awhile. He did, so I picked him up at Janice's first.

Anna made the expected fuss over the baby. She is at one with newborns, and is one of the two most-intuitive people I know. I like to have her respond to people who have seized my interest - children and certain women, especially - because her casual responses often tell much more than my labored analyses. (I recall arriving at a cocktail party in 1992 with Grace's mother, who dispensed with the niceties of greeting Anna and Ed, and left us to talk with some special person across the room. "She needs more attention" was Anna's cogent observation.) It is a bit like going to a shaman. "She's a happy child, isn't she?"; and, "My, she seems as alert as a three-month old."; and - upon first taking Macckenzie in her arms - "She looks a lot like all of your girls - especially Grace! Isn't it strange that little babies can look so much like their parents?"

Ike, Mackenzie, and I had interrupted Anna and Ed at work in their back yard, and Ed suggested, "It's time for a break, Anna." We sat on the front patio, and chatted. Isaac attempted to explain how and why Halo far outstrips any form of video game heretofore created. Ed loves "edged weaponry" and military history. I heard myself say as I noted his wry confusion at Isaac's explanation of Halo, "I know if you were a teenager today Ed, you'd be the ultimate Halo geek." Ed said, "Yeah. Anna, too. She likes those Warthogs and missle launchers. Right, Anna?"

We decided it had been over a year since I had been to their house. I owe it to myself to change this pattern. Ed and Anna have loved me when I was at my most-unloveable, and we have shared many wonderful meals.

After an hour, Isaac and I decided to go to the Boshears Fly-in, to look at vintage and exotic planes. I had mentioned at Anna's and Ed's that Isaac's grandfather had been a ball turret gunner in a B-17 during World War II, and that I had seen one at a Fly-in a couple of years ago. I thought that might bring the Boshears experience more into the real for him. On the way there, when I mentioned that it was going to cost twenty bucks, Isaac suggested we try the Living History Fair at the old North Augusta Water Works instead. (This is the area where the young boy found the ancient arrowhead a few years back. Ed tells me that there is a wonderful spring there, where Indians gathered for hundreds of years.)

The fair is set up to show something of what life in 18th-century America might have been like. Ike bumped into a couple of guys he knew, so Mackenzie and I strolled around while he went his own way. We had completed a loop of the fair, and I was holding her as she negotiated a fall into Nod. A man walked by, saw her, and asked, "Is that a historic baby?" I told him, "not yet", but he countered, "Oh yes she is, even now. I can tell."

Well, his remark got me to thinking. When I answered the question, I was being glib, trying to be positive while keeping a certain social distance. I wasn't much in the mood for being chatted up by a stranger - even though this fellow was quite pleasant. In my mindset, I was answering the question more like, "We hope", or "It's a little too early to tell." I recall that as Grace developed, somewhere around the time she turned 2, I began to get the sense that the universe has something special in store for her. I guess that was my way of encouraging people to look beyond Grace's idiosyncrasies, and into that misty of world of human potential. Grace will be regarded in time as an historic baby, I believe. At the moment at the Living History Fair, though, it was clear that the friendly stranger was correct.

He walked away, and I looked at the baby. I thought, "This is the first great-grandbaby of my family." That reminded me of Laura's birth - and her cousin Kara's. (Kara was born in March, Laura in June, of 1984.) In the circle of acquaintance of Janice and me, Laura's birth marked the start of our generation "getting" the wonder of parenthood. I consider that moment to be the defining one of my life.

Grace has had her life defined, I think. She does not have the life experience to appreciate the significance of this fact. She does not have the loving relationship with Mackenzie's father to go forward as a traditional household. She is without means or prospects in the near future. And yet, there in my arms was a baby very much like the infant Laura, exhibiting similar charm and needs, and oblivious as was Laura to these material facts. This child can be as well-loved as was Laura - and Sarah, Grace, and Isaac as they graced us with their presences. This child can be educated as to what is right and what is wrong. This child can be trained to become self-reliant and caring. Whether it is a consensus perception or not, I regard the other stuff as window dressing. Irrespective of those worldly matters, we can be ethical; we can risk loving; we can learn to respect both ourselves and the other. Because there is a lot of "not-that" out there, the price of seeing to it on Mackenzie's behalf - like that of liberty - is eternal vigilance.

My grandfather died when he was 61 and my grandmother was 56. When Gram was 59, she lost her 38-year old son, the former bull turret gunner. She was left with one daughter, age 36 - named Laura, after Gram's mother, Laura Seiberling. Gram never remarried, never even dated. She taught elementary school for 1,314 years, and retired at 69. (She started when she was 18, and finished her college degree in 1954, at the age of 49. She never stopped asking me, from time-to-time, "Don't you remember my college graduation? You were there." I was born in 1952. "Gram! I was two!!" I don't remember the happiness I brought her then, but she never stopped being pleased with my very being. In time, I became aware that I made her so very happy.) Because my grandfather was dying from emphysema, his doctor suggested that they live in an arid climate. They chose the Phoenix, Arizona area, in 1958. It was there that Gram taught Navajo children for three years, until Grandpa died. (I remember her coming to Ohio with corn tortillas in a tin lonngggg before anyone ever thought of a Taco Bell, and fixing her grandkids their first "Mexican" meal. Boy, did I love that.)

Her first historic baby was my father. I was the first of her eight grandkids, historic in my own way, I suppose. Kara was the first of her 16 great-grandkids - although Gram only lived to see - or know of - 13. Mackenzie is her first great-great grandchild, born in Gram's 99th year. Grace received her name because she shared a birthday with Gram's mother-in-law, Grace (nee) Prentice Brown. (There is a photo of the infant me with Grace, Gram (Velma Seiberling), and Mom (Norma Feyh). Mackenzie will have photos of 3/4 of her great-grandparents at which to gaze in wonderment.

The friendly man at the fair also asked, "Are you the grandfather?"

I paused, looked him squarely in the eye, and said, "No, I'm Holden."