Tim Macy at Thirty

by Pa Rock
Proud Dad

My youngest, Tim, was born thirty years ago today in Mountain View, Missouri. It was the first day of fall, and if he had been born female he would have probably been named Autumn in honor of the change of season. (His sister occasionally calls herself "Summer," so perhaps our family has some seasonal affectation!)

Tim was born on a Sunday. His mother went into labor in the morning, and we wheeled by our church enroute to the hospital and dropped his two older siblings off with his future godparents, Jerry and Carolyn Kinder. Our doctor at St. Francis Hospital in Mountain View was Jon Roberts. Because he knew us well, he was comfortable in asking Tim's mother if a group of EMT's could come into the delivery room to watch a live birth. There probably weren't as many of them as I remember, but it seemed like the room was full of on-lookers as Tim entered the world.

Another woman was delivering at St. Francis at almost the same time. I don't remember the parents' names, but the baby was Candice Brown. Happy 30th, Candy. I hope that you have had a wonderful life and made your parents proud.

My parents were vacationing in Florida with Mom's sister and brother-in-law, Christine and Bob Dobbs, when Tim was born. Christine's birthday was also September 23rd. They stopped by Mountain View on their way home to meet the newest Macy.

For those of you who don't know how proud I am of Tim (and his brother and sister) well, you just haven't been paying attention! He works with disadvantaged youth for the University of Kansas (smells like social work to me!), and he is an accomplished author and playwright who has had a play produced at the Kennedy Center in DC and has had two of his short stories made into films. All of that was in his twenties - think where his thirties can take him!

Tim has always pushed me to write, and last year when I would occasionally take a day off from the Ramble, he would immediately email asking what was wrong. This year, because of Tim's prodding, I have set a goal to publish in the Ramble every day. He is also challenging me to work my ass off at the gym, and, yes, my ass is disappearing!

If you would like to know just how fine of a person Tim Macy has become, read the comment that he posted to my blog entry yesterday entitled "Sadness." He cares about others. I could not be prouder!

Happy 30th birthday, Tim! May you have many, many more!

A Good Day in Arizona!

A friend from Ft. Campbell, KY, sent me an email this afternoon. She lamented that it was snowing there for the second day in a row, and that all of the area roads were icy. I immediately wrote back and told her how badly I felt for her and all of my old friends at Ft. Campbell. Then I went on to add that it was eighty degrees in Arizona and I put the top down on my little convertible when I went to lunch today. She never wrote back after that!

I miss winter - just a little - but I am going to Washington, DC, in a couple of weeks and will probably get a dose of it there. I hope that it is nice, though, because I want to get over to Baltimore and have seafood at one of their beautiful restaurants on the harbor.

The last time that I was in our nation's capital was in 2003 when my friend Millie Crossland and I went to see one of my son Tim's plays that was being presented in a competition at the Kennedy Center. Millie and I managed to get over to Baltimore where we had a great seafood dinner and a boat ride with Michael Hyman, my roommate from the Russia trip.

I was also there in 1999 with my social work classmates from the University of Missouri. We developed positions on a set of issues and proceded to lobby Missouri's Congressional delegation. During that trip I also went to the outdoor inauguration of the new Teamster's President, James Hoffa, Jr. It was being held next door to our hotel and I just admitted myself to the boisterous gathering. I met a lot of very interesting people there! One member of our social work group had a cousin who flew Al Gore's plane, and he got us night time passes to tour the White House. We saw it all, from the kitchen to the Oval Office. Later our Navy tour guides joined us downtown at the bars! One other highlight of that trip occurred when we got off of the tram from the airport and were dragging our baggage to the hotel - looking somewhat like the Beverly Hillbillies. As we were crossing a street, one of our group saw Vice-President Gore walking out of a building where he had been attending a fundraiser. He jogged to his limo and then made a point of waving to our group and smiling as he was chauffered by us. Big Al was almost skinny in those days!

But, back to the topic of Arizona. It is what it is - a beautiful place to spend the winter!