[Granville-Hough] 26 October 2009 - Bonny's Birthday

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

    As I have honored son David, and daughter Nancy, with stories of 
their birth, and the harrowing experiences associated with them, it is 
prudent that I do the same for Bonny.  However, this birth went so 
smoothly that there is not much I can recall.  Carol had made a 
resolution, after Robin's birth at Fort Sill Hospital, that she would 
not endure another Army Hospital birth.  When we got to Los Angeles on a 
two-year study assignment, Carol made arrangements for this birth to be 
by Cesarean section at Santa Monica Hospital.  My recollection is that I 
took Carol to the hospital the night before, then prepared for an exam I 
had the next day.  After the exam was over the next day, I went 
straight-away from USC to the Santa Monica Hospital, but I was too late 
for the main event.  Bonny was already cleaned up and I could only see 
her through the window.  She was surely the prettiest little doll I ever 
saw. 
    She was the quietest and most agreeable of our four children, and 
Carol always credited that to the doctors and nurses at Santa Monica.  
Once or twice I had a fright I had lost Bonny, but it turned out she was 
asleep on my shoulder each time.  She would have her milk, then burp 
easily on my shoulder, then drop into a sound sleep.  She did not weigh 
ten pounds, so I would just forget she was there.  She never fell off my 
shoulder, so I guess she had a grip with her hands and feet, like a baby 
monkey.
    As she grew up, she was always cautious and deliberate, not a 
dare-devil like Robin or Nancy.  This kept her out of a lot of trouble.  
So we congratulate Bonny on her fifty-sixth birthday.  May she have 30 
or 40 more!

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When Bonny was a year old and we lived on Wynkoop Ave in Westchester 
addition, Los Angeles, we were able to take part in Halloween Trick or 
Treat.  Every family trekked around the street with tots
before dark, then the bigger kids came around.  We gave up just about 
everything we had, including our fruit for the following week.  Then a 
big guy came to the door and demanded in a bass voice, "Trick or Treat," 
and I asked: "Aren't you a little old for these Halloween games?" and he 
said, in the same deep bass, "It's my last year."   Well, I hope so.
    In my family, we referred to the late-comers as the "It's my last 
year gangs."