Monday January 15, 2018

Monday January 15, 2018

Blog time 1030 at Panera 

March 15 is an important date in the Scott family.  It is the birth date of daughter, Deborah.  I have fond memories of this date.  We were living in Redwood City, Ca.  On Friday afternoon, January 14, Nancy called me at work and said she had just been to the Doctors.  He said Nancy was ready to deliver and that she should pack her bag and check into Sequoia Hospital after dinner.  The Doc was going to induce birth.  

We checked in around eight and as soon as Nancy was settled I headed to an all night grocery store.  I cashed a check for $100.  We did not have health insurance so we had to pay in cash.  I paid the bill and rejoined Nancy.  Yes folks $100.  Around midnight they wheeled Nancy into the delivery room and I headed to the waiting room.  Fathers were not allowed in the delivery room.    Debbie was born in the early hours of January 15.  Great memory!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEBBIE

It was snowing and 15 when I first went out this morning.  Wind chill at 0.  Nancy headed out to a class at MVP followed by a visit to Dr Yurko our dermatologist.

After breakfast I bundled up and headed out.  I walked to the Y.  I lucked out because we had an east wind so I had to wind at my back on the 1.7 mile walk to the Y.  Noted a lot of school age kids at the Y.  I assumed their school was closed for the Martin Luther King holiday.

It was too cold to walk outside so several mothers brought their strollers to the Y and walked the indoor track.  Great idea and I am glad to see the Y is so accommodating.

Being a US holiday there was not much news.  Some news items I did read were:

The UK scrambled jets to encounter Russian jets near the UK border.  The Russian jets moved away from the border.  Is this a game of chicken?

Wolves are returning to Belgium.  After an absence of decades wolves have returned to Belgium and other EU countries.  Great to see.

The false missile alert in Hawaii, while a major blunder, is actually a great wake up call.  Changes will be made all to the good.  Let me explain.  During the height of the Cuban Missile crisis, Oct 1962, the entire US Navy was on alert.  This included Midway Island.  I remember leaving the base movie theater one evening when the alert sirens went off.  Sailors were scrambling everywhere.  I kind of remembered that my duty station during an attack was the public works garage.  Sailors in my division also remembered where their duty station was but none of us knew what to do.  A sailor asked me what should we do Ensign Scott.  I really did not know so I told him to make a pot of coffee.  Luckily the Chief Petty Officer knew where the manual was and we started reading.  It was a good manual so we soon knew what to do. Finally word came out that the alarm was false.  Some critter had chewed the cable.  The good thing about the false alarm was that we knew what to do in case of a real alarm.

Two weeks later the base was subject to an unannounced inspection of our alert procedures.  A team of Navy and Marine personnel from Pearl Harbor conducted the inspection.  We passed with flying colors.  In fact we were so good the Navy awarded the base a coveted E.  First time the base had ever achieved this rating.

As soon as I got home we piled in the Escape and headed to Costco.  We loaded up on paper products like paper towels, toilet tissues, and Kleenex.  We now have a years supply of paper.  Also bought peanut butter, wine, prunes and the Indian bread, naan.

Stopped at Cascade Library so Nancy could pick up a book.  The book was lost in the delivery system so maybe next time.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in the office.  I framed some family photos and spent a lot of time reviewing data on my family history site, My Heritage.

Light diner followed by the news.  We watched a new show on Acorn before turning in.