OH LORDY! DAVID IS 'FORTY'...!!!!!i

I was only 19 years old when David was born, and a very naieve 19 at that. As the 'first born' David was always the 'great experiment' and I learned how to be a better parent with each child thereafter...and made less major bloopers.

On the other hand, when you are a child, raising a child...there is a lot of fun to be had too. I didn't have a clue of how to care for a car, and unless there was a big black 'clump' on the end of the oil stick...I wouldn't change the oil in our various cars until it was...the first being a VW bug.

So you can imagine how good I was at raising and caring for a child. David was my 'little buddy' and since he was also my kid...no one could tell him he couldn't go with me if I wanted him to...so we were on the 'go' as much as my limited money and my limitless imagination could take us.

With only about $20.00 in my purse, I'd think nothing of loading up David in the car and taking off for Disneyland from the Bay Area...gas was cheaper then and so was Disneyland! I'd pack our food and away we would go on one adventure after another. "Going out to dinner" was going to McDonalds...and on a Birthday, it was perfectly fine to order a super bowl of ice cream from Farrels with 20 scoops of each flavor ice cream and let him go at it until he was half sick. No one ever did that for me, I reasoned, and my generousity always was a little overboard... since my own parents made frugal look like spendthrift when it came to spending money on us.

We still go to the movies and buy junk food and the biggest popcorn with butter they make, and we always feel half sick when we leave...but I guess we learned together that hogging all that junk was just part of the fun of going to the show! Talk about the blind leading the blind...that is a kid raising a kid.

On one road trip I saw a little red light go bright on the dashboard of the 'bug' and thought I had better stop at the next gas station. Well, before we got too much further, I blew a rod and we were stopped in a remote area between Concord and the East Bay in the mountains somewhere.

This was before cell phones so I hoped someone would stop to help us, but then again, I was afraid for someone to stop. When one kindly man finally stopped, I lowered the window just a tad and asked him to call my step Dad to come get me...I probably had about $5.00 to my name until payday...so calling road service was definitely 'out'.

David slept in the back seat soundly as I unknowingly ran the battery to 'zip' by listening to rock and roll music (and singing along to every song) on the radio for the several hours it took for my step Dad to arrive. I don't know what would have happened if the helpful stranger didn't take the phone number I had jotted down on a scrap of paper and actually stopped at a gas station and made the call to home to get me some help.

My step Dad brought a ROPE and tied it to my car and his and hauled us home with me steering the car while it was in neutral and putting on the brakes when he did. We did have enough sense to put David in the big car, but having a lot of good sense wasn't in a big supply when I was 19 years old. Sometimes I would spend all of my paycheck and have no money for gas for a few days, so we'd have to take the bus. It didn't seem odd to me that I didn't plan better.

I did learn that when a red oil light comes on the dash...stop immediately if not sooner. I was again destined to blow a rod in a little Austin Healy 3000 I zipped around in with both David and Wendy in the little rumble seats...blasting Elton John through the rear speakers at the highest volume possible with the top down...but I can guarantee you that there were few places of amusement in California that me and my oldest kids didn't go...even if it meant eating cereal for dinner for a few nights. I sure had my priorities straight then too.

We've probably watched a hundred parades over the years, not to mention the dozen circus' and had to take in the local 'rides' by the supermarket when it comes to town in every locality. Spending money to try the games of chance was always on the menu, and for some reason...I always believed we had a 'good chance' of winning a giant prize. One so big it had no hope of fitting in the car if we did win it.

I have a million memories of all my children when they were small and growing up, but with David...everything was a 'first'...from learning how to sew matching outfits for us...to budgeting money so there was enough for the babysitter. Sometimes I was going to college and wasn't working in the 8 to 5 sense of the word...but did reporting for various papers wherever we lived as a 'stringer'. ..so no babysitter was necessary, and by the time I was 28 I must have had 14 different jobs...Then I realized I had to work for myself since I didn't want to 'mind' anyone. I never have held a real job since then, so I could go when and where I wanted to, or when the business would allow it...but never as often as I wanted to...even today!

When Halloween came around, I spent days working on a costume idea I thought of and threw together things I had around the house to make the costume 'work'. In order to come out with a great costume, I thought nothing of tearing up my own clothes if I needed fabric in a certain color. I sure couldn't afford to go 'buy' anything. I have hundreds of pictures of David over the years, and with each new child...there is fewer and fewer. I labored over his 'baby book' but by the time my third child came along...I was room mothered out, cookie maker done and baby book skimpy.

I even taught a "Yearbook Class' when David was in 8th grade. Even got him a dirt bike and a real live pony. Nevermind it was a mean little shetland pony, but I always wanted one...and never got one...so I made sure they did. David is the only one who could really ride the onery beast...he'd just crack it in the head when it tried to bite him or take him into the brush. He's tried to fix mechanical things this way at times over the years, but the results have not been as positive using that method.

As an infant, David had colic for months and it seemed all he did was scream...I believed God was punishing me for a million sins with this small creature with big lungs...as I was Catholic then and just felt 'guilty' all the time...and worried about going straight to hell should a bus run over me. I don't know why I always worried about a bus running over me...I never knew anyone a bus ran over...but they were big and you were sure to die if one of those big buses hit you while you crossed the street.

In those days, thinking 'bad thoughts' was high on the list of reasons I should go to hell pronto if I died that day. They have nice Priests today, but the one's I remember were an inch away from being sadistic...and I won't even go into the Nuns!

I was desperate for my mortal soul if I ate meat on Friday back then (a hamburger was usually the great offense against God)...but worried not when I'd practically shove David (and Wendy) in my parents door and take off running in case they tried to follow me, so I could join my friends at a dance club or for a party at someone's house or apartment. In all, most of it was pretty innocent since I always had to plan to work the next day.

I would throw amazing parties for David's birthdays...decorate the entire house, make and decorate Birthday cakes from scratch...and would invite all the family and whatever friends I adopted along the way to the celebration...and by the end of the evening I think we all were pretty 'drunk' and everyone was 'gushing' over the little 'star' of the evening like drunks always do. One year I even made a recording of Wendy's birthday party and she still finds that tape halarious as all the guests say something clever while half gassed about her 'first' birthday.

David and I sort of grew up more like 'brother and sister' than Mom and son in many ways...and oh could we fight with each other. In some ways I was extremely 'over-protective" and would think nothing of going down to the school to let a teacher know my little prince was not to be messed with...and then would take him skiing the following week and think nothing of us both going down an intermediate slope when he was about six years old.

If he fell, I would just stop and say 'Get up, you're not hurt.'...and if he continued to cry, I would tell him to stop 'bawling' or I was going to take him home! No wonder he is as tough as a junk yard dog today!

He hated going home from any "adventure"....and even when we stayed at Disneyland (or any other theme park) or went to the beach, or camping, or the lake or skiing, until it closed and they kicked us out....we would always leave with David (and later Wendy) both sobbing all the way to the car "I don't wanna go home...I don't wanna go home..." I was so young...I didn't "wanna go home" either, but they were closing the place down and we HAD TO GO HOME!

It is just impossible to see myself as the mother of a 'forty year old man' as he is STILL a 'kid' to me like my other 'kids'...I still worry if he will be 'all right' with the decisions he makes for his own life like some sort of hen fussing about aimlessly. If I don't see him for three months, I get really, really lonely for his company and somehow make it happen soon thereafter.

We talk on the phone for hours these days and share the highs and lows of our life like best pals...but when we fight...Oh Lord he stills drives me crazy and I drive him crazy too....it is as brutal as two full grown adults can get without slugging each other. Fortunately, our 'fights' seem to have diminished to becoming as rare as hen's teeth..but the potential is always there cause we don't tread too lightly with each other...and probably never will.

I know intellectually that I am aging, I can feel it in my aching bones and back as I crump to the coffee pot each morning wondering where that new ache or pain came from? When I look in the mirror it is hard to recognize myself at times as that old woman looking back at me. I don't know I am old until these two events happen...as with the exception of much greater 'wisdom' today and choosing all my 'battles' very carefully...I still feel like that young girl with lots of hopes and dreams..without a clue of how to attain them (although almost all of my hopes and dreams have been surpassed many times over by now).

Put on an old song, and I am that cute little bundle of energy who never thought she really was good looking....but looking back at old photos, I think "Damn girl...you coulda got almost anyone you wanted for a life mate...I wonder why you always seemed to choose the birds with the broken wings to drag home and try to fix?"

Of course, my kids had to 'meet the new fella' time and time again...and I've marched to the wedding march song more times than I care to share here for now. Each bird I dragged home wanted to 'straighten out my kids", but that was a line I put in the sand and come hell or high water...if they wern't good to the kids..or at least decent and fair, it was the beginning of the end for them.

Some of these birds ended out being coo coo birds, and others were bird brains...and one was even like 'big bird'...but it didn't seem to cause too much trauma other than a big roll of the eyes when Mom 'did it again'. Of course four of these guys are the father's of my four children, and I would do it all again with them to make sure I got each kid out of the deal, if that is what it took to have my little ducks around me.

I've been married to the youngest one's Dad for almost 18 years so I'm staying in this marriage for my personal world's record, since I think I got the 'gist' of being and staying married now. "Expect less" is my motto..and you're bound to get a pleasant surprise!

Still, David just CAN'T be 40 years old my heart tells me...but no matter how you add up the numbers they still come out the same. He's forty and on my next birthday I'll be 60...and that seems so old...I wonder why I don't act or feel like I think a person 60 ought to? I don't wanna grow up...I don't wanna grow up so I think I just won't grow up today, OK? Maybe tomorrow...maybe on my Birthday, but not now...OK?

I think that it is time to blame not calling my son on his birthday on 'a senior moment' as the day came and went and his 'day' completely slipped my mind. When I finally did call him I did to him what he does to me.

"Why didn't you call me to remind me it was your Birthday?"

If it works for a 40 year old...I figure it has to be a "shoe in" excuse for someone 60 to get away with wouldn't you agree?

Everyone who knows me knows how proud I am of all my grown children, and how blessed I know I am that they all turned out to be so talented, good hearted, bright, good parents, and my best friends. If you add up the mistakes I made with all of them, you could write a book on 'errors' alone...but in spite of that reality...I recognize in them a great sense of honor, committment, goodness and a love for what is right and just for others. I see in them compassion and passion, intelligence and a fantastic sense of humor. ..a love for family and service to their community. They all seem to want to 'make a difference' in creating a better world...and they are very, very good at it. Each one has a stong and solid sense of 'family' and we are very, very close as a result of it.

They brush their teeth and comb their hair and take showers regularly and try to eat balanced meals and wear clothes that match, and never white socks with black pants. I know that it is by the Grace of God they turned out so amazingly balanced and smart...but I also see in them some of the 'gifts' I was able to pass down as well.

The greatest of these is good old fashioned 'common sense'...and that is something at a great premium today. They are still my greatest joys in life except for the 'grandchildren' they've given me...and when they are in pain...they are still my greatest sorrow. My son may be 40 now...but I can never stop being 'Mama', and I can't think of a single reason that I should...even if I could.

I think being "Mom' to these amazing people is my greatest accomplishment in life...or maybe it is just 'dumb luck' that God has 'loaned' me these good spirits for so long now. In any case, I guess my firstborn and I will go on to experience some 'old age' living together through that as well. That should provide some rip roaring laughs here and there along the way.

Here's to more 'senior moments' between us son...Happy Birthday and I love you forever and forever. In honor of you new Law Enforcement Career...here's your 'rap' song...


"It's Yo Mammie Homey Bro... wish yo Happy B' day so

Yo can dis and miss a pal, hugs for yo and dat's for now

Mammie needs sum shut eye, crash 'en rest...

...from try'n & fly'n ouddaa da cuckoos nest!"

:>)