Early Days

I was born in 1980 in Spokane, WA. My parents were hosting a party for my aunt and uncle and I guess I wanted to join in. I showed up that night, three weeks early, and apparently didn't give my mom too much trouble with the delivery, but her veins did. My dad was a fire fighter & paramedic at the time and he was undergoing phlebotomy training. The nurse tried multiple times and locations to insert an IV with no luck. My dad, a normally quiet and mild-mannered person was reported to be quite frustrated with this and would have liked to just do it himself. He still feels that way about most things. In his defense, he usually does them better than anyone else would. Anyways, back to the party, because I made my appearance fairly abruptly there was some confusion as to whether my mom's parents were alerted and on the way. A close family friend heard people asking if the Shriners had been called and started wondering what was wrong with the poor kiddo. Luckily for me, Shriner was my mother's maiden name and not the foundation, and I was born with healthy and happy. I'm pretty sure that my pre-natal self knew that being born on a year that ended with 0 would make math much easier in the future.

Two and a half years passed, I'm sure they were great but I don't remember much. In July of '83 my little brother joined me in the world. Ty was a couple of weeks late, and if you equate that with my couple of weeks early, and my mom was sure that he was never going to be born. If I remember correctly she was swimming in a pool and ignoring the contractions; she was that convinced he was staying put. Needless to say he disagreed and arrived that evening. I remember him as a cute kid that I called Butter and he called me Ninny. When I was asked if I liked my new baby brother I sadly reported that I would have preferred a puppy. I'm still waiting...