The Birds and The Bees – See Reference Section (Parents Story I)

As I grow older, and am exposed to other people’s parents, I realize more and more that my parents are unique. Here is my first story of many about them.

Growing up, my family had a habit of reading while eating. Not at Family Dinner, which we had for many years until my mom decided to stop cooking. (That’s another story.) But while eating alone.

We had a floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall bookshelf in our kitchen. Our ritual would be to pour a bowl of cereal and then take a book off the shelf. From the age of three, I did this. I went through Goodnight Moon through Where the Wild Things Are to Dr. Seuss to the entire Three Investigators series.

When I was around six, I noticed more serious titles like Talking To Your Five To Eight Year Old About Sex appearing on the shelf. As I aged, so did the title ages of the books, finishing when I was 13 with Talking To Your 15 to 18 Year Old About Sex. Page 57 had the good pictures on it.

My sister Christine and I would refer back to that page often.

My parents NEVER discussed sex with me – or my two sisters – growing up. Those books were our parent's way of imparting that knowledge.

My Cousin In Iraq

I received this email today from my 30-year-old cousin Christopher:

There was the rumor going around that our unit will be deployed to Iraq this year and recently the rumor has become truth. On July 10th I will be reporting to Gulfport, Mississippi for training for deployment to Iraq. I expect to spend a couple of months down there for training and more shots. UGH! From what I hear I should be in Iraq around September/August. I'm going to be stationed in a large Marine base north of Baghdad called Al Asad. It's basically a giant military truck stop and I will be doing logistical work for the convoys. I suspect that I will be there for 6-8 months as my orders are for a year. As of right now, today is my last day of work (YIPPEE) and plan on spending time with family and friends up until my deploy date.

He seems happy about going. Has he not heard that people are killed there?