Happy Birthday, Ian!

Today is my nephew Ian's 22nd birthday. Last week he went back to BYU-Hawaii and I hope to reach him today to wish him a happy birthday.

Ian's birth-day is very memorable. Robes' ten year high school reunion was September 19th in California and Kim's doctor said if she was a betting woman, she'd bet that their baby would be born late. So Robes went to his reunion. The next day Kim called and talked of being in pain. I don't think she ever used the words "labor pains" because it was her first baby and she hadn't been in labor before. She went to the hospital and Robes sat on our couch in Van Nuys talking to her (and crying). Ian was born that night.

Here is an excerpt from one of Robes' human interest articles he wrote titled One Man's Escapism published in the Sun-Sentinel on December 10, 1995.

If something big is happening, I'm probably out of town.

Though my travels and travails don't always coincide during out-of-town trips, there have been enough incidents to make my wife worried whenever I pack my bags, which, as a sports writer, I do fairly often. Many of my personal milestones are memories from another place.

While I was in Los Angeles for my 10-year high school reunion, our first son was born two weeks premature in Florida. I frantically tried to catch a flight out, but couldn't get home until the following morning. Exhausted when I finally reached the hospital, 12 hours late for the blessed event, I pushed two chairs together and fell asleep under a bedspread.

"Sometimes this is a lot tougher on the father than the mother," an unknowing nurse cooed to my wife.

Kim wanted to vomit on me.