Happy birthday, my Rhode Islander
Exactly six months from Christmas either way, today is Malinda's birthday: June 25, 1958, she is sixty, my daughter is sixty years old. Lots of things come to mind. One is that our home in Northern Virginia (the second time I was stationed in Washington DC) had a swimming pool, 38x15, kidney shaped, outside the lower, ground level of the house, walkout onto the patio overlooking a steep hill sloping down into thick woods with a creek running through it. After heavy rains and thunderous rushing waters in the creek, we could work our way into the woods, through the poison ivy to the creek, and in the sandy creek pick up bullets from the Civil War era but not necessarily battle, likely hunters' bullets. I gave the last of them to Joe years ago.
But this is about Malinda and the swimming pool, and I digress. First, when we bought the house we were moving to Washington from Ohio, where Tass was born. I'll come back to that. I flew from Columbus to Washington National Airport, where was picked up by the realtor we had chosen to deal with, and we started looking. A start was as far as I got, because not only did this first house have a perfect swimming pool, but the layout was perfect for a family with a tiny girl and two teenagers: three bedrooms and a bathroom on the main floor, living room and dining room looking out on the pool, patio, tall trees; and on on the lower, walkout level two bedrooms and a bathroom for Malinda and Joe; finally, the financing: the Navy captain selling the house offered to hold the mortgage.
So I bought the house, Fairfax, Virginia, off Route 50 a mile from the beltway; a twelve mile drive, one hour, to my office in Crystal City. I took pictures of the house and pool back home with me to Ohio. That evening as the pictures circulated at the supper table, I watched Malinda as she picked up the pool picture. She glanced at it, did a second-take, her face grew bright red as she looked up at me and exclaimed, "It has a pool, doesn't it!!" I had wanted to surprise her, and she was surprised!
You only need a house with a pool once in order to get over it, but it was wonderful, had a heater so we could warm it to 84F well into the fall and from early in the spring.
My related memory is that Tass, who was two when we moved there in 1974, had two little friends, sisters who lived across the street, one Tassy's age, one a year or so older. Their mother was friends with Linda, and they used to come across the street and play in the pool together. Once when they were there, Malinda, who would have been 16, was swimming at the other end of the pool, got out and as she started to dry off, the older little girl asked, "Who's that lady?" Linda said, "That's Tassy's sister." Her mouth dropping, as shocked as a little child can be, the little girl says, "I thought sisters were little."
Malinda has been a blessing and a joy all my life, and still and always is so. I will confess that, following the ambulance to Pensacola the dark stormy night wee hours of Saturday morning, May 19, I thought I had lost her, the girl I used to rush home from my Navy school at lunch and again after class, rush home to hold her when she was newborn and so tiny. I had wanted her for so many years, wanted her more than anything in my life. There was even a moment, Malinda was maybe six weeks old, when Linda took her to her pediatrician for a checkup: the doctor reminded Linda, "Now that you have the baby, don't forget to pay attention to your husband also," to which Linda said, "Tell him to pay attention to me, he's not interested in anything but the baby," and I'll confess Malinda entirely stole my heart.
Malinda was born in Athens, Georgia where I was in Navy school, and though she was a Navy brat growing up and lived in many places, may think of herself as a Georgia girl. But she's not, at least to her daddy. When we found out Linda was pregnant with the baby I was hoping would be a girl, we were living in Rhode Island, had been living in Kingston, Rhode Island while I was in Navy Officer Candidate School in Newport. Malinda is a Rhode Islander, a Yankee from the shores of Narragansett Bay and the Jamestown Ferry.
When I was in OCS, Father David Damon let us live in a house on South Road in Kingston where he had lived as a boy when his father was a professor at the University of Rhode Island. What do I remember? A quaint old New England village with Robert Frost style stone fences and narrow, quiet country roads under tree canopies, houses set back just a bit. The Damon house was on the east side of South Road, brown wood shingle siding, wood shingle roof. Tenants were downstairs, we had the separate upstairs apartment accessible only by an outside back stairway. I do recall that at least one burner on the old electric range had rusted out and fallen through. Our first home. Father Damon baptized Malinda at Holy Nativity, and was her godfather.
In the google map below is Kingston Congregational Church where the Damons were Congregationalists in those days. Father Damon and Olive started with us at St. Andrew's Epicopal Church while he was a scientist or engineer at the Navy Base.
At OCS we had liberty call from about nine o'clock Saturday morning until about five o'clock Sunday evening. I'd rush into Newport, ride Jamestown Ferry across Narragansett Bay to Jamestown where Linda would meet me, and we'd drive across the
frighteningly high-arching Jamestown Bridge
and on to Kingston. We were never quite sure our green Dodge was going to make it up the bridge's steep slope.
Once, for some reason, maybe our car was giving problems, IDK, a classmate named Walt in my OCS company gave me a ride, letting me out where the highway passes South Road (arrow). About a two-block walk down South Road to the house.
In 1957 there was an old village well there at the north end of South Road where the arrow is, with an old fashioned well house. I recall that Walt my OCS classmate drove a two-tone green 1953 DeSoto Powermaster six
two door sedan, advertised as a club coupe:
a large, long, heavy, sluggish machine. Bit of a Buick look to the front, though, and Chrysler meant DeSoto to be about their equivalent of GM's Buick and Ford's Mercury.
The university was spread out north of the Kingstown Road through Kingston.
Malinda: happy birthday. Thank you, God, for this beloved daughter. And thank you again for her life restored to us in this month's chaos.
Daughter Tass was born in Columbus, Ohio and may think of herself as a Buckeye. Surely, not ever as an Ohio State fan? but a Buckeye, which is an Ohioan. But she's not: "This land is your land, this land is my land, from California ..." San Diego, where we lived and loved when I was aboard ship 1969-1971. Tassy is a Californian.
Her name? Is Cathlyn Marie Lucile. When she was little we called her Cathy. When she first started trying to say it, she would said Tassy, and it stuck. Tassy. Tass.
Kristen? A native born Panama City Floridian like her Papa.
Caroline and Charlotte Spinks both Tallahassee, Florida natives.
And Lilly Kelly, Panama City native.
Happy birthday, Malinda, I love you so.
And all my girls.
Dad Papa
But this is about Malinda and the swimming pool, and I digress. First, when we bought the house we were moving to Washington from Ohio, where Tass was born. I'll come back to that. I flew from Columbus to Washington National Airport, where was picked up by the realtor we had chosen to deal with, and we started looking. A start was as far as I got, because not only did this first house have a perfect swimming pool, but the layout was perfect for a family with a tiny girl and two teenagers: three bedrooms and a bathroom on the main floor, living room and dining room looking out on the pool, patio, tall trees; and on on the lower, walkout level two bedrooms and a bathroom for Malinda and Joe; finally, the financing: the Navy captain selling the house offered to hold the mortgage.
So I bought the house, Fairfax, Virginia, off Route 50 a mile from the beltway; a twelve mile drive, one hour, to my office in Crystal City. I took pictures of the house and pool back home with me to Ohio. That evening as the pictures circulated at the supper table, I watched Malinda as she picked up the pool picture. She glanced at it, did a second-take, her face grew bright red as she looked up at me and exclaimed, "It has a pool, doesn't it!!" I had wanted to surprise her, and she was surprised!
You only need a house with a pool once in order to get over it, but it was wonderful, had a heater so we could warm it to 84F well into the fall and from early in the spring.
My related memory is that Tass, who was two when we moved there in 1974, had two little friends, sisters who lived across the street, one Tassy's age, one a year or so older. Their mother was friends with Linda, and they used to come across the street and play in the pool together. Once when they were there, Malinda, who would have been 16, was swimming at the other end of the pool, got out and as she started to dry off, the older little girl asked, "Who's that lady?" Linda said, "That's Tassy's sister." Her mouth dropping, as shocked as a little child can be, the little girl says, "I thought sisters were little."
Malinda has been a blessing and a joy all my life, and still and always is so. I will confess that, following the ambulance to Pensacola the dark stormy night wee hours of Saturday morning, May 19, I thought I had lost her, the girl I used to rush home from my Navy school at lunch and again after class, rush home to hold her when she was newborn and so tiny. I had wanted her for so many years, wanted her more than anything in my life. There was even a moment, Malinda was maybe six weeks old, when Linda took her to her pediatrician for a checkup: the doctor reminded Linda, "Now that you have the baby, don't forget to pay attention to your husband also," to which Linda said, "Tell him to pay attention to me, he's not interested in anything but the baby," and I'll confess Malinda entirely stole my heart.
Malinda was born in Athens, Georgia where I was in Navy school, and though she was a Navy brat growing up and lived in many places, may think of herself as a Georgia girl. But she's not, at least to her daddy. When we found out Linda was pregnant with the baby I was hoping would be a girl, we were living in Rhode Island, had been living in Kingston, Rhode Island while I was in Navy Officer Candidate School in Newport. Malinda is a Rhode Islander, a Yankee from the shores of Narragansett Bay and the Jamestown Ferry.
When I was in OCS, Father David Damon let us live in a house on South Road in Kingston where he had lived as a boy when his father was a professor at the University of Rhode Island. What do I remember? A quaint old New England village with Robert Frost style stone fences and narrow, quiet country roads under tree canopies, houses set back just a bit. The Damon house was on the east side of South Road, brown wood shingle siding, wood shingle roof. Tenants were downstairs, we had the separate upstairs apartment accessible only by an outside back stairway. I do recall that at least one burner on the old electric range had rusted out and fallen through. Our first home. Father Damon baptized Malinda at Holy Nativity, and was her godfather.
In the google map below is Kingston Congregational Church where the Damons were Congregationalists in those days. Father Damon and Olive started with us at St. Andrew's Epicopal Church while he was a scientist or engineer at the Navy Base.
At OCS we had liberty call from about nine o'clock Saturday morning until about five o'clock Sunday evening. I'd rush into Newport, ride Jamestown Ferry across Narragansett Bay to Jamestown where Linda would meet me, and we'd drive across the
frighteningly high-arching Jamestown Bridge
and on to Kingston. We were never quite sure our green Dodge was going to make it up the bridge's steep slope.
Once, for some reason, maybe our car was giving problems, IDK, a classmate named Walt in my OCS company gave me a ride, letting me out where the highway passes South Road (arrow). About a two-block walk down South Road to the house.
In 1957 there was an old village well there at the north end of South Road where the arrow is, with an old fashioned well house. I recall that Walt my OCS classmate drove a two-tone green 1953 DeSoto Powermaster six
two door sedan, advertised as a club coupe:
a large, long, heavy, sluggish machine. Bit of a Buick look to the front, though, and Chrysler meant DeSoto to be about their equivalent of GM's Buick and Ford's Mercury.
The university was spread out north of the Kingstown Road through Kingston.
Malinda: happy birthday. Thank you, God, for this beloved daughter. And thank you again for her life restored to us in this month's chaos.
Daughter Tass was born in Columbus, Ohio and may think of herself as a Buckeye. Surely, not ever as an Ohio State fan? but a Buckeye, which is an Ohioan. But she's not: "This land is your land, this land is my land, from California ..." San Diego, where we lived and loved when I was aboard ship 1969-1971. Tassy is a Californian.
Her name? Is Cathlyn Marie Lucile. When she was little we called her Cathy. When she first started trying to say it, she would said Tassy, and it stuck. Tassy. Tass.
Kristen? A native born Panama City Floridian like her Papa.
Caroline and Charlotte Spinks both Tallahassee, Florida natives.
And Lilly Kelly, Panama City native.
Happy birthday, Malinda, I love you so.
And all my girls.
Dad Papa