The Holidays Before the Boy
Tuesday, December 14th, 2010
No matter how difficult it is to see just how, my parents did in fact have a short life together before I was born. In fact, they spent two Christmases together before I was even conceived: one as a newly dating couple who had only been together for a couple of months, and one as a married couple who had yet to set the wheels in motion of creating me and forming our family. There is a home movie that exists along with a small batch of photos showing my parents during this holiday. Read the rest of this entry »
Both before and after Christmas, my Dad’s family kept busy with not one, but two birthday celebrations in the month of December. My cousin Lora’s birthday is on December 9, so she was celebrating her 9th special day. My guess would be that the little party took place after church on the 8th at her parents’ – Bill and Dottie’s – house. I only have one photo from this gathering and as you can see below, I once again was at the ready with my assistance in blowing out the birthday candles. 
All through the Summer of 1974, my parents had been working on a couple of projects in our back yard. The first was a barn to store our lawnmowers, garden tools, and other items that wouldn’t fit in our (then) single-car garage. He enlisted the aid of his cousin Irene’s husband Virgil Davidson to assist in the construction, with my Uncle Ed helping to put in the flooring. Dad an Virgil worked on this during the day before heading off to work at Brown and Kroger in the evening. No telling how much assistance I lent to the project. When it was done, we had a nice looking white barn that still sits on the property today. 
It is interesting for me to look at the dozen slides that my Dad took during our Summer weekend retreat at Woodland Altars in 1974. I’m not exactly sure what the retreat was for or when it took place, but my guess is that it was around the Fourth of July holiday. Also I am not sure if this was a retreat of the Bear Creek or the Beavercreek Church of the Brethren. When we moved to Beavercreek the year before, we had switched from Bear Creek to Beavercreek, obviously due to the closer proximity.