More December Milestones

A light snow is falling, with temperatures in the low 20s early this Friday morning.  It appears we are guaranteed a "White Christmas" for 2010....as it appears we will not get above 30 for the foreseeable future.  Hopefully we will get another inch or two to cover up the grit and grime and the snow cover of the coming holiday season.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xubmk_bing-crosby-white-christmas_music

I put out the daily ration of feed and seed for the birds and squirrels about an hour ago...and I noticed the squirrels and Cardinals are nowhere to be seen...and Sparrows are skittish and tend to hide in the Raspberry bushes this hour...making it my guess our winter resident Marsh Hawk is in the area, looking for his morning meal as well.  It's going to be an interesting winter in the PRH backyard.

December Milestones____

As I wrote about a few days ago, December, of all months, at least in the Houseworth and adjoining families, has more anniversaries, births, deaths, and other milestones than any of the others, by far.  Mom reminded me that my Uncle Bill(her brother) was December born(4th), and others I had missed as well.  Bill DeVore, as I have written about before on this blog, was a Battle of the Bulge survivor from World War II.  I lived part time with him and his family in Wilmington, Delaware, back during my days stationed at Dover, before I headed across the big pond to South Vietnam in 1968 and 69.

On this date in 1981, the first Houseworth male in our immediate family was born in St. Marys, Ohio....our son Sam, was the first male born since March of 1949, when I was born in Van Wert, Ohio.  In the proceeding 32 years, 5 girls from the mom and dad's kids had been born, plus my two younger sisters...but no males until Samuel William Houseworth were born 29 years ago this morning.  Hal Stanley, after another girl to one of the sisters, came along in 1984.                                                    

Speaking of Sam, he just left for Columbus this morning, then with a couple of friends, will head to Atlanta, to party with a friend who graduates from Georgia Tech this weekend.  Sam, is midway through his Junior year at The Ohio State University, and is on course to graduate in the spring of 2012, at the ripe old age of 30.  Carrying a 3.4 GPA in Actuarial Science, his grades are fine, and sometimes the later you head off to college, the better.  I know I finished college at 28 and then went to broadcast school, finishing that in 1978 at 29 years old.  Patricia, with a degree from Bryant and Stratton in Milwaukee, she finished that at 20 before moving to Ohio...but her teaching degree and accompanying Masters Degree from Wright State, came along in her mid 30s, after the kids were all born.  Hal was the only member of the clan to actually get his BA and Masters at a "normal" age, and that seemed, at times, like he was swimming upstream.  But after taking 6 years to get his BA in Social Sciences and History, he quickly got his Masters to teach, and was finished with college at the age of 25.

December 18, 1976_____

Sam came along a day before Patricia and my 5th wedding anniversary...so she spent the 5th in the maternity ward of Joint Township Hospital....

Patricia Callies and I met in late 1973 after I had moved back to Celina from upstate New York.  3 years later we were married in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.  Like any other couple married for this long, we have had our ups and downs, but have survived my days in radio and locations like Wausau and Merrill, Wisconsin, Kokomo, Indiana, and Dodge City, Kansas.  We made it through her working 2 jobs and attending Wright State University, while we raised 3 kids...one, Anissa, with multiple handicaps....it's been an interesting ride, and it certainly doesn't seem like the wild days of the mid 1970s was all that long ago.  Time, indeed, does fly by at a lighting pace.

So with Sam out of town, we will have a dinner with him on Tuesday of next week...as for Patricia and my 34th year....we still have an Outback card from last year to use, and a movie to see this weekend...not sure what the schedule is, or how we can work around our time with Anissa, and my basketball games, which start tonight in Paulding, and tomorrow with games at Spencerville....but I'm sure we will find the time.  Who says retirement means having the time to relax?  I haven't seen that yet!

enjoy the weekend....back later>>>>

Photos-Patricia and me on 12/18/76, Sam at Riverfront Stadium on his 7th Birthday in 1988...the temps were near zero and the Bengals thumped Houston's Oilers 61-3 on the memorable day.  Sam with a can collection, beer and other cans he collected after local fisherman had tossed them along the farm house on Coldwater Creek Road....I suspect some of those cans(but not that Red, White, and Blue crap) were dad's as well.  Another of us at the church in Oconomowoc on the wedding day...and then Patricia and me in front of the Defender Fortis Statue at Wright-Patterson at our Vietnam Reunion last March in Datyon.