Veterans Day.
Last night, Elaine and I were happy to attend the
Retirement Party given by my daughter
Elizabeth's fellow workers at the school where she "served" for many years. It was a very nice affair, with lots of food contributed by the attendees (we brought banana bread.) Video and skits galore took place and it was obvious that Elizabeth was a most beloved friend to everyone. She, of course, had her lovable "quirks," which her "roasters" capitalized on.
Years ago, when I retired from Social Security, Elizabeth joined my "roasters." She made an acrostic of the letters of my name and said something true/funny/nice about every letter. It was a wonderful gift to me. So, I wanted, in a small way, to give her such a gift, and to let you know a little bit about her life before she knew you, so I made an acrostic for her, as follows:
G is for Gypsy:
While I was in Germany, and while we were not yet engaged, my future wife and her mother noticed while coming out of church, that a group of gypsies had taken over a store front across the street. They had put out a sign:
Fortunes Told.
My future wife and her mother decided to have their fortunes told. The Gypsy seemed very excited to tell my future mother in law: "Maybe 7 or 8 years from now, I see you traveling to Baltimore, Maryland to visit your new granddaughter."
I can hear my future mother in law now saying: "Yeah, and that's when pigs will fly."
Neither my future mother in law nor my future bride had ever thought much about Baltimore. They knew that it was somewhere down south.. probably below the Mason Dixon line. So they had a good laugh about the prediction.
B is for Birth
The Gypsy's prediction started to come true. We got married, I accepted a job in Baltimore, we moved there and after a while, we were blessed with a baby girl, that we named with the most beautiful name we could think of: Elizabeth.
The birth time was interesting. At that time, husbands were considered a nuisance and in the way at birthing time, so I spent 8 nervous, pacing hours outside of the hospital waiting for our little girl to be born.
N is for Night
Elizabeth was a good baby, but she had her days and nights mixed up. So, when we wanted to sleep, she wanted to play. When she wanted to play, or eat, or poop, or cry.. we wanted to sleep. But we got used to it.
V is for Visit
The Gypsy's prediction came completely true! Immediately after Elizabeth was able to be brought home to our Baltimore row home, my mother in law and father in law arrived at our house to welcome her into the family.
S is for Savior
While visiting us, my father in law, who was a chain smoker, fell asleep in one of our over-stuffed chairs and dropped his lit cigarette between the seat cushion and the chair arm, where it smoldered for a while and eventually caught fire.
We had all gone to bed and were asleep, except for Elizabeth, who smelled the smoke and woke us all up with her crying. We immediately carried the now blazing chair out the front door and into the street where it eventually disintegrated. Our little week-old baby had saved us adults from a fiery demise.
R is for Running
At the age of 6 or 7 months, Elizabeth got tired of sitting and laying around; she didn't like the idea of crawling, so she suddenly just stood up and began to run. She has been running ever since.
L is for Lying
At one point in elementary school, I got a notice to come in to talk about Elizabeth's deportment. One of her teachers said that she did not know how to handle this "hyper active" kid. She even indicated to me that Elizabeth might be retarded. This rubbed me the wrong way, so I decided to make this teacher rethink her relationship with my daughter. So I lied.
I told her that there must be some mistake because I had Elizabeth evaluated at Hopkins and they found he IQ one of the highest ever recorded for someone her age. This lie was completely accepted by the teacher. Suddenly, Elizabeth was a child to be nurtured and helped to find activity that would be appropriate to her intelligence. She must have passed the word on to the other teachers because from then on, as far as I knew, she was treated just like the other kids.
Some years ago, I was invited by the Eldersburg PTA to give a talk on "How to Raise Children." Since it was at a PTA, I assumed that most of the people would be parents. Nope. Most were teachers, who did not like my story about the "lie." In fact, some are still mad at me about it. But I did what I thought was best by my lie. I knew that Elizabeth had some form of attention deficit, but her mother and I did not want to deaden her system by allowing her to take medication.
I am really happy that we decided against medication... just look at all she has achieved so far in life. Sure, she "
burns the candle at both ends"... but
look at the wonderful light it gives off.
M is for Moving
When Elizabeth and her sister, Diane, were teenagers, we moved to Gamber, Maryland, a very rural community. On the day that we moved in, the doorbell rang and on the doorsteps we discovered a large group of local farm boys who came to see the "beauties" who had moved in. One of them was even on a horse. I had to handle lots of "friendly boys" over the years. Even some who came "calling" in the middle of the night.
H is for Horse's Head
Finally, I want to mention that Elizabeth has always had a love for people and things that are "different".. For instance, one day, at her High School, she noticed a papier mache prop that was used for some Greek or Shakespearean play. It was going to be thrown away. Elizabeth asked to have it and brought it home. It was a giant horses head. In fact, it was so big that the bus driver refused to let her bring it on the bus. So, she somehow managed to carry it for the twelve mile trip to Gamber.
Her mother took one look at the horse's head and refused to let it be in the house. I, of course, loved it and placed it in a spot of honor in the basement. There it stood, for all to admire, until it rotted.
There, I hope I have given you a little insight into the life of your friend before you met her. The acrostic I made just could not adhere to Elizabeth's name, so instead, it shows:
GBNVSRLMH - which, in Klingon, means: WONDERFUL DAUGHTER!
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