Birthday Eve

Far back in the days between the advent of Elvis and the sad day when Marilyn left us, Ma and Pa sat in their one room shack behind Quinn's Market. With Jack Paar on the small b&w, Pa slept off his bender while Ma fretted nervously. Ooh Pa did work in the shoe factory and this place was better than the West Gettysburg Inn (where Ma had been mistaken for one of the "working girls" and Pa had pulled his knife and...oo that's more of a springtime story). But Ma was nine months along now, and as the good book says: 'the days were accomplished when she should be delivered." Ah, what to do!! Pa dint have his license cause of the DUIs and hunting out of season dint endear him to the local police (he was part indin after all!!) Oo..the Plan!! Ma dragged herself up and went next door but one to Clyde's home. he said he'd drive them and he did take Pa to work most every day. But now he was dead drunk on the floor! Humph! Well the first thing that Pa's sis had taught Ma about managing menfolks is how to get them sobered up for the 'portant things in life, like work, suppers at the fire house, and when Oliver B. Green's Tent Revival came to town. So Ma made a pot of black coffee and poured it in Clyde. His wife heard the commotion and came out to help. "C'mon ya dam fool, Suzie's havin the baby!" So off they went, Clyde to get the '47 Ford Truck on the road and Ma to drag Pa out of his confy chair (the very chair where only three years later Pa would...aah but that's more of a new years' eve story). Anyhoo, they were all tumbled in and off down the road to Chambersburg Hospital they went, arriving some time after midnight. Pa and Clyde got in the door with Ma's help, then sank into two plastic chairs, where they snored and drooled. Ma went back with the nurse to the delivery room, where they met the doctor. About quarter past three the doctor came out, covered in blood to tell Pa that he was now the father of a baby boy. And Ma said he shall be called Sam since Pa calls everyone he dont know 'Sam'. "Honestly," she told her son years later, "whatever I would have called you your Pa would have called you Sam."