Mom, baseball, and apple pie

Mom and my stepdad Lawrence,  at my brother 's house,  the year before she passed away.

My mom Edith loved the Cincinnati Reds. She watched them play every chance she got on our little 19-inch color television. Cable television had yet to be invented and all of the games weren't broadcast on our local channels 3, 8 and 13. So, she would plug in the radio and tune into the AM station as clearly as she could. It usually sat on the back of the sofa, because that is where it got the best reception. She and my stepfather would sit in their not-too-big upholstered rockers and listen intently to the play-by-play given by Joe Nuxhall, a former Reds pitcher, and the "voice of the Cincinnati Reds", Marty Brennaman.

image by lethal_lane at photobucket

The most excited I think I ever saw my mother was during the 1975 and 1976 World Series games, when "The Big Red Machine" won both championships back-to-back. Beginning in 1970, rookie manager Sparky Anderson led "The Great Eight" to five NL Western Division titles, four National League pennants and the two World Series championships. They racked up records by the fistfuls. And in the 1977 and 1978 seasons, they finished in second place in the World Series. No wonder she loved them.

The roster was a dream team:  Johnny Bench, who is heralded as the greatest catcher of all time, and at one time held the record for most home runs by a catcher, never played for any other ML team but his hometown Reds; Pete Rose, also a Cincinnati native, nicknamed Charlie Hustle, played third base and was a switch hitter and a hitting machine (thankfully, Mom never had to find out about his gambling disgrace); Tony Perez was on first base, Joe Morgan on second, and Dave Concepcion as shortstop. In the outfield were George Foster, left field;  Cesar Geronimo, center; and Ken Griffey (Sr.) in right field. My mom loved every one of them and talked about them as if she knew each one personally, but she really had a crush on Johnny Bench.

Johnny was always a gentleman, on the field and off. He looked like the all-American boy-next-door. And he had a local connection. One of our neighbors had a daughter who happened to be roommates with Johnny's sister, whose name I can't remember. Mom loved to hear Diane's stories about the parties that she and the sister attended with Johnny and the other guys. I think Diane secretly hoped Johnny would ask her to marry him, but I think Johnny thought of her as his other little sister. Mom would have been so proud of Johnny when he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1989 in his first year of eligibility, but sadly, in 1987, she died of a heart attack and didn't get to see him achieve this goal.

One of my biggest regrets is that Mom never got to attend a Reds game in person. She would have been a little scared to be out of her element, but a lot more excited to be near her beloved team. If I had only known how short our time with her would be, I would have made sure she got to see them play at least once. This Mother's Day will mark the 24th anniversary of her passing. I still miss her sweet voice and her pretty smile every day. To celebrate, I think I will tune in and see if the Reds are playing. With 23 channels showing nothing but sports, surely I will be able to find one with the Cincinnati Redlegs. Mom would have been in seventh heaven.

image taken from Food Network site, but it looks a lot like Mom's

Mom's Apple Pie

8 cups Golden Delicious apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons lemon juice

4 tablespoons butter, cut in small pieces

1 10-inch double pie crust

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In large bowl, toss together the apples and the next 7 ingredients, granulated sugar through lemon juice. 

Line deep-dish 10-inch pie plate or pan with bottom crust. Place the apple mixture in the crust and dot with the cut-up butter. Cover with second crust and crimp edges.  Cut an A for apple in the center.

Bake at 400 degrees for 40-50 minutes, or until crust is golden brown and filling is bubbly. If the edges of the crust are getting too brown, cover with aluminum foil strips.

Enjoy with a scoop of vanilla ice cream while it's still warm and watch your favorite baseball team while you scrape your plate and lick your lips.

March is for birthdays

It begins with a big boy turning eight years old.  It's hard to fit 8 candles on a dinosaur cupcake.  And, yes, he wanted his hair that short!

The dinosaurs were also party favors.

Nathan was born in Louisiana, and his birthday was the day before Mardi Gras....sooo, the dinosaurs fought their battle on a bed of purple, green and yellow-sugared vanilla frosting topping chocolate fudge cakes.

Best buddy Garrett

There were friends bearing gifts.

Reading circle buddy Tiara. They discuss books. :)

Matthew really enjoyed his cupcake.

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Then there was birthday number two, or rather number five, for Lauren.

She wanted a kitten princess cake.  I had to take cupcake surrounds (outside liners) shaped like crowns and put kitty stickers on them. There were also picks shaped like castles and those got the stickers also. She loved it, but immediately asked me where the brown and orange stripes were that she wanted. I'm sorry, Lauren, but I just couldn't do brown and orange with pink and green. Bad Grammy! 

The family was there to help her celebrate with homemade pizza. 

Her best cousin/friend Kaitlyn, who is always by her side at Grammy and Poppy's.

Gaige sporting his visor creation that was the party craft.

Nathan and his winning smile.

Matthew was much more interested in the cake than he was the pizza.

There were a few Disney and My Little Pony characters invited. 

And she was a very happy and excited little girl.

We also have Gaige, Nathan and Kaitlyn's daddy's birthday today. And I have one of my very best friend's BD, two nephews and one niece. It's almost as many as May and October!

Hart Family Reunion

The Hart family reunion is always held on the first Saturday of July. This year's reunion was extra special because my Aunt Marie was able to attend. She gave us quite a scare in the early spring with a bout of pneumonia and we thought we would lose her. But she is a tough woman who has survived many obstacles in her long, rich life. After being in a near-coma, she bounced back and is "feeling pretty good". Good enough to make us all happy that she is still with us and able to commune with us over good food and good talk. She is my mother's youngest sister and the only surviving sibling of that Schaffer/Hart clan.

(On the left is Aunt Marie holding Everett in the mid-1930's. On the right is the house as it appears today. It doesn't actually tilt...that would be the photographer's fault.)

We always have the reunion at my brother Everett's house which happens to be the Schaffer/Hart homestead and was also my home until I was eight. It was built in 1887 by my great-grandfather Peter Schaffer; and has always been owned and lived in by our family. And it always will be. That is a pact that will never be broken.

Aunt Marie telling me to take a pretty picture. And here it is.

My brother Everett is standing to my left with his wife, Gloria. They were married when I was three. My cousin, Earlene Hart Townsend, is on the left with her husband Jim.

With my youngest niece, Melissa, who is Everett's youngest. She is a sweetheart and so are her two sisters and three brothers.

The barn where I spent many hours playing as a child with my cousins and sometimes by myself. It was actually built before the house, so it may be closer to two hundred years old. The American chestnut posts and beams show no signs of age. Chestnut is impervious to insects and rot.

Jaye and Matthew in front of the small stream that runs between the house and driveway. It was a much more adventurous ride down the sidewalk when I was a child...no handrails!  The stream flows into a creek across the road which almost always flash floods when there is heavy rain. The house has never flooded because it sits on a high bank.

Lauren and Melissa's two boys, Harm and Jake, explore the stairs to the basement. I played on those stairs all the time, and in the basement, when Mom would let me. My sisters swear that there are ghosts in there. My late sister Jane told that when she was a teenager, Mom sent her to the cellar to get something and on the way back up, she felt a hand grab her shirt. She turned around on the stone steps to look and she claimed to have seen a ghost wearing an old-fashioned uniform. Lots of screaming ensued! I was never scared to go in there...I loved playing in the dark coolness and smelling Mom's pickled corn and green beans in the big stone crocks weighted down with heavy plates. Those crocks are still in the barn.



This year's turnout was a little light. I'm hoping that next year the whole family will be able to attend. They were missed.

Calling all.....

....Debs, Debbies, Deborahs, Debras. Wowza! There are a lot of you out there in my little blog-o-sphere! You know who you are. There's the one who was displaced from one coast to another....oh, yeah, and she also has another one. There's the one who lives in a sweet little cottage. There's one who looks out her window and tells us about her world. There's the one who lives her life in two different countries. And the newest one to join my bloglist is this one who lives in the next county and writes about food and her little five-acre farm. Debbie Reynolds must have inspired a lot of mothers-to-be in the fifties and sixties. Or it could have been Deborah in the Book of Judges, The Holy Bible. I hope I have remembered all of you, dear friends.


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There is one Debbie that I can never forget, and that is my niece, the eldest offspring of my full siblings. Mostly she goes by that name. Her husband Rick calls her Deb. Some of her cousins call her Debbie Jo (because there's also a Debbie Jean). My mom, her grandmother, called her Debra Jo when she was in trouble, which I usually caused. No matter what name she is called, she can always answer to the title of strong, thoughtful, sentimental, loving, honest, straightforward, and loyal woman, friend, mother and wife.

I was four years old when my oldest sister Jane, at seventeen, delivered into our midst the cutest, sweetest little roly-poly baby girl. She was my baby doll and the adults had to watch me carefully or I would try to pick her up and carry her around like one. I was allowed the grand honor of holding her while she drank her bottles. They lived with us for quite a while, because Debbie's dad was in the military and was stationed in Okinawa. Unfortunately, the marriage didn't survive the first year, and my sister became a single mother, while also finishing her senior year in high school.

Debbie was always a little lady. When she was not much older than a toddler, she would be concerned whether her "undergirt" was showing from beneath her dress, and her hair had to be fixed just right, and she really hated getting her hands dirty.  We called her "Miss Priss".

(Debbie held by my dad...I'm in front of Mom)

Debbie's growing-up years were fraught with stress. My sister remarried to a man who was very nice when he was sober, but not very nice when he was drinking...and he drank a lot. He had deep-seated emotional issues that he self-medicated with alcohol. He was physically abusive to my sister for ten years (he was never mean to Debbie or her little sister and brother...one of his few redeeming qualities). People nowadays wonder why a woman wouldn't just leave an abusive husband. Things were a lot different then. There were very few laws protecting women. You could call the police and they would come and slap him on the back and laugh with him and would only throw him in jail if he was "disorderly" or the wife pressed charges against him, which usually were dismissed. There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide with little money and fewer resources. What woman in her right mind would press charges against a man who threatens to kill her if she does, and knows the next time he's drinking that she'll get it even worse than the time before. And there's always a next time. Did you ever watch the movie "The Burning Bed"? That was my sister's life. The ending was different. My sister didn't set fire to him in his bed. She finally decided enough was enough when she woke up in the middle of the kitchen floor with a gash in her temple and her only thought was, "If I could get to the butcher knife in the drawer, I would kill him."  She soon filed for divorce.

(Debbie, at age 9, with her sister Jamie and her brother Jimmy)

I don't tell you all this to make you feel sorry for our family. I'm telling you because it helped shape the woman that Debbie is today. And it also explains why Debbie often stayed with us for weeks at a time. She was more my little sister than my niece. I also spent a large amount of time staying at their house. My sister Jane was like my second mom.

As you can probably guess, Debbie and I were very close as we were growing up. We giggled over boys and TV shows, and we fought like sisters as well. Once we had a fight over a new jar of peanut butter. We both wanted to be the first one to stick the knife in the fresh surface. Well, I did it and she got mad and smeared peanut butter all over my leg. Mom gave her a couple of swats on her bottom while I smiled devilishly from behind Mom's back. Debbie has never let me forget that one!


That same summer, I think I was 13 and she was 9, we were allowed to stay at home alone one evening while my mom and stepdad went to visit some of his family. We had plotted and schemed all day that while they were gone we would ride my bike half a mile down the road to the old-fashioned general store and buy a Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee pizza and bake it. Problem number one--we had no money. So I, being a consummate petty thief (ha), was to steal seventy-five cents from mom's purse while Debbie made sure she was distracted. Okay, we pulled that off without a hitch.

As soon as the car left the driveway, we were on that bicycle heading to the store. Nonchalantly, we chose the cheese-pizza-in-a-box and paid for it with the purloined coins. As we pulled into the driveway, I think I slid in the gravel, Debbie fell off the bike and I ran over her head. Okay, it's not quite as bad as it sounds. I think I mostly ran over her hair and caught a little scalp in with it. She cried and I cried and begged her forgiveness and we went inside and baked the pizza. That was one delicious cheese pizza! We cleaned up the mess, and with innocent looks on our faces, sat down to watch television as we heard them pull into the driveway.

Problem number two occurred when my stealthy mother with a great sense of smell sniffed out the evidence. DUH! Have you ever smelled one of those things when you're not eating it? She walked over and looked into the trash can and poked under the cover-up we thought had been so clever. Mother was a little unhappy with us. Not because we made a pizza, but for lying and stealing money from her purse.

(Me, age 15. Debbie, age 11.)

Debbie's life was peaceful for only a short while after her mother and stepfather were divorced. My sister hooked up with an old boyfriend from her early teen years, a career Army recruiter who was returning from overseas. They were quickly married and he moved them all to Florida for his next job assignment. Far away from everything and almost everyone who Debbie knew and loved. He turned out to be a miserable sonofabitch full of sweet talk and promises and he was also an alcoholic....who later on became physically abusive to my sister (it seems she was destined to choose the same kind of man more than once). He hated Debbie because she saw right through him from the beginning. Debbie's stay in Florida didn't last long, only a few months. She came back to Ohio to live with her real father, who until then had not been a big presence in her life. She was thirteen and became the oldest sister to three younger siblings by her dad's second wife, a wonderful stepmother named Mary.

Things were okay at her dad's, but the house was small and crowded and Debbie didn't like him telling her what she could and couldn't do. And she missed her mother terribly. She and Debbie had always been extremely close, and then it was almost like she no longer had a mother because my brother-in-law effectively shut off communication between them (and all of us who loved her). He knew a troublemaker when he saw one.


Debbie was just sixteen when she was married. Only seventeen when her first son was born nine months and four days after the ink dried on the marriage license. She was born to be a mother. For all intents and purposes, she had been mothering her sisters and brothers practically her whole life. It must have seemed perfectly natural to mother her own little one.
Nobody has ever handed Debbie anything. She has worked hard her whole life. Although she didn't graduate high school, when her sons were young, she studied and got her GED. She didn't want them to be ashamed of her for not having a diploma. That is only one of her many accomplishments. She has always striven to make a good life for her family.


Debbie's and my kids grew up together. They are very close in age. Her oldest son Ricky is ten months older than my oldest, Jaye. Then came my Josh, then her James, then my Aimee. We lived three miles apart. The kids all went to the same elementary and middle schools. That is when our next "excellent adventure" began. We took over were elected as officers of the PTO. She was president; I was treasurer; and our friend Jean was secretary. We did that for five or six years. Burned us both out on volunteering for a long time. We put together elaborate Fall Festivals and Christmas dinners with (sometimes questionable) entertainment. We raised money to buy computers, playground equipment, etc. We were great collaborators, and Debbie was always the brains of the outfit. There was never a challenge too big for her to tackle. We spent hours and hours on the phone discussing the next big event. We even managed to lose my two youngest children and our friend Jean's daughter while we were busy getting set up for the next day's Fall Festival one year. That was a very frightening experience!


Debbie was also a successful direct sales representative for not just one, but three different companies. One of them for over thirty years! Then, because her husband became disabled and she no longer had insurance, she went to work as a cook in the same school district where our children attended. She loves her work there, but she wasn't satisfied with just that. Oh no, not our little workaholic! She decided a few years ago, after her youngest son opened his own barber shop, that she wanted to be a barber, too. So, while she was still working as a cook, she attended barber school for the required 1,800 hours and became a barber at the age of 50! She said it nearly killed her, but she never quits when she has a goal. I couldn't have been more proud of her if she had attained a medical degree. She joined her son in his barber shop, and they're still working out who is the real boss. :)


When we suddenly lost my mother, Debbie's beloved Grandma who helped raise her, twenty-three years ago, there was none among us who was more heartbroken than Debbie. It left a huge hole in her heart and in her life, as it did all of us. Debbie worshipped her then and she does to this day. We clung to each other and to my sister Judy to help us get through that time.  And they were both there for me when I needed them the most. We survived another loss three years ago, when we lost Debbie's mom, my sister Jane, to cancer. Once again we sought each other out for comfort that only close family can provide.


After being separated from her mother for twenty years and after my sister's divorce from the evil one  her third husband, they had finally been able to heal old wounds and have some happy times together for quite a few years before her mom passed away. I know Debbie is very thankful for the time she was able to spend with her, reminiscing about the good times, because there were some very good times to remember.


Family is everything to Debbie. That is, and will always be, her credo. It is what drives her to be everything she can be. She is the matriarch of her family of a husband, two successful sons, two beautiful daughters-in-law, three lovely granddaughters, and a cute and mischievous little grandson. They look to her for the way to go, because they know that she will always steer them in the right direction. She may be small, but she is the strong one.

This is what Debbie wrote about mothering on Mother's Day this year:

"I was a "MEAN MOM"... I loved my children enough to ask where they were going, with whom, and what time they would be back.. I loved them enough to make them clean their rooms in MY house.. I loved them enough that doing well in school was not rewarded but expected and you were to respect your teachers...I loved them enough they had to eat whatever was on the dinner table...I loved them enough they actually had to ride the bus..I loved them enough to insist on knowing every detail about their friends...I loved them enough to buy their first car,but the insurance and gas was at their expense and they could only have 1 friend at a time in the car...I loved them enough that YES they actually got their mouth smacked if they talked back...I loved them enough that I BROKE CHILD LABOR LAWS, they had to wash dishes,take out garbage,mow the yard, wash cars, vacuum the house, cook... I loved them enough when they fought with each other, they had to kiss and make up...I loved them enough to insist they be honest, you may still get in trouble, but not near the trouble if you lie to me...I loved them enough they could not date until they were 16... I loved them enough they did not always have the best of everything, they had the best I could afford..I loved them enough to say NO more than YES...I loved them enough to set a curfew and ground them if it was broken....I loved them enough to let them see anger, disappointment and tears in my eyes... Because I was a "MEAN MOM" I have 2 sons that have never been arrested for shoplifting, vandalism, drugs, or any other crime. Best of all, they are now "MEAN DADS"...I guess its true what the experts say, things and lifestyles are carried through generations, my Mom was mean, I was mean, now my sons are mean parents..........I wouldn't want it any other way."

And they wouldn't want you any other way, Debbie. Happy, happy birthday!

Love you always,
your Auntsisterfriend

The hills where I call home

I was born and raised in the hills of southern Ohio, namely Ironton, which was named for its rich iron ore deposits. I'm proud to call myself a "hillbilly". To some people that name conjures up images of ignorant rednecks with missing teeth gathered 'round a moonshine still and shootin' their guns into the sky and I suppose there is some truth to that. My family has lived on the homestead that my great-grandfather Schaffer built in 1883 since that time. And in the era of Prohibition, my grandfather Charles Hart built and ran a moonshine still in the holler behind the barn and made good corn whiskey to sell to the local residents....that is until the "revenuers" found him out and busted it up. He was a scoundrel, my Grandpa Hart. But the majority of the people there are honest, God-fearing citizens who would give you the shirt off their backs if they knew you were in need. They value home and family and giving folks a fair shake in life. For the most part, they are educated and knowledgeable, and they love to have a good time.

Down there we call hollows "hollers" and children are "young-uns". Some people still say "worsh" for wash, but they don't worsh their clothes in the "crick" or the creek either.  There are colorful names for some of those hollers. There's Possum and Painter and Sawmill Hollers. Some of the names for roads would "peel your ears"...Hell's Creek and Pig's Trough (although some call it something worse...just replace that g and the apostrophe with an s). There are interesting names for the ridges that run along the tops of hills...Greasy Ridge and Tick Ridge. The villages in the surrounding area have names that suggest the founders might have been interested in foreign travel...Rome (where the Rome Beauty apple was developed), Arabia, Waterloo. One of the places where I called home for a few years was Aid, which was originally called Marion, but there was already a Marion, so they had to change it. Aid? Really? And, of course, some smart-aleck kid would always write "Kool" above it on the signs (usually my friend Sue Ann's brother Billy).

This Memorial Day marked the 142nd annual Ironton, Ohio, Memorial Day Parade, the nation's longest, continuously running Memorial Day parade. It began in 1868, only three years after the Civil War ended and the same year that the last day in May was set aside to honor veterans from that war. Of course, Memorial Day now honors all veterans from all the wars in which the United States has played a part. I can remember attending the parade when Ironton's last remaining World War I hero, Colonel William Lambert, marched in it.

(Ironton High School's Marching Band)

The parade is a very big deal in my hometown. It's a matter of civic pride and patriotism, and although the town now has a population of around 10,000 people, on Memorial Day the parade draws in an estimated 30,000 people from all over the state of Ohio and the surrounding tri-state area, which includes Huntington, WV and Ashland, KY. People start lining the parade route with lawn chairs at 6:00 a.m. that morning, even though the parade doesn't begin until 10:00. You are very fortunate if you happen to have a relative who lives on the parade route. Those lucky people who live there often find relatives who they didn't even know they had!

It's candy heaven for kids. Every volunteer fire department, city fire department, every police department throws candy from their vehicles. There are high school bands, cheerleaders, majorettes, prom queens, pageant winners, 4-H Clubs, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, horse clubs, dance schools, local dignitaries and county and city officials.

(My nephew Rick and his daughter, Madison. Taken by Melissa Koster Campbell.)

Long time participants are the Ashland, KY, El Hasa Shriners. You know about the Shriners, don't you? They dress up in fezes and Alladin and Pharaoh costumes and do funny dances with swords. They drive jalopies and beat-up hillbilly cars and wear hillbilly costumes with blacked-out teeth and funny hats and carry fake guns. They like to make fun of themselves, but they do a lot of serious business in fundraising for Shriner's Hospitals for Children which provide totally free care for children with orthopedic problems and severe burns. Two of my nephews, Rick and James Stamper, are members of this worthy organization and participate in the parade in the Hillbilly Kool Bus.

(My nephew James and his son Nicklaus. Taken by Melissa Koster Campbell.)

We didn't attend the parade this year even though we were home visiting my in-laws. We were pulling an open trailer and had our dog, Lucy, with us and didn't fancy trying to find a parking place and a shady spot for Lucy. We also weren't too keen on the idea of a three-hour long parade and another hour getting out of town on our way back home to Marysville. So, some of the pictures were borrowed from my almost-niece Missy and from a local newspaper, The Herald-Dispatch. But we did attend a few years ago. This picture collage is from ones taken in 1986.

Top left, Jaye's baseball team with his cousin Rick in the front right of the photo.

Top right, Jaye's Boy Scout troop with whom he chose to march. He's the one with his hand raised.

Bottom left, David's cousin Judy and her family with their team of draft horses.

Bottom right, Aimee and me.

Here's a video from YouTube, for your viewing pleasure.

A "Grand" Parade

Our Easter parade took place in the front yard, starring our "grands".

Gaige forgot to wear his cool new shades that he found in his Easter basket at home and had sun grins. It didn't hamper him from finding lots of eggs in his fancy Kroger "basket" though.

Lauren is sporting her new glasses that change in the sun. She just started wearing them recently to correct a lazy eye. She only wanted the real Easter eggs and not the fake plastic ones...even though the fake ones had real candy and money hidden inside.

Nathan couldn't wait to run to the next hiding spot and he brought along his own Easter bunny to help find the eggs.

Kaitlyn didn't care which kind of eggs she found as long as she got her equal share.

Matthew was soooo excited! His mommy would throw a plastic egg near him where he could easily find it, and he would squeal with delight every time! It was the cutest thing

The lame cake that I threw together at the last minute. I only had about two hours after arriving home from Cincinnati to get the house cleaned and the food started before the family showed up!

The bouquet of daffodils that David picked for me from the woods between the front yard and the road. Don't pay any attention to the browned edges of some of them. That happened because I had to dowse the flowers in cold water to get all the little black bugs off them! There were hundreds of them!

Youngest, Oldest, Middle, Only

(l.to r. Mom, Everett, Jane, Judy, and me, circa 1980)

Well, it's no secret to a lot of you longtime readers of my blog that I am the baby of my family. So, if you believe in the psychology of birth order, then I am a risk-taking idealist with a good sense of humor who is hard working but immature, attention-seeking, secretive, sensitive, spoiled, manipulative, outgoing, affectionate, confident, self-centered, empathetic, confident, and a creative social diva. Whew!  But this is where it gets interesting.

Because my siblings are quite a bit older than I am (my brother is 19 1/2 years older, oldest sis was 14 years older, and my other sis 9 years older), and they all got married relatively young and moved out of the house, I was basically an only child at age seven. But wait, there's more.

When I was four years old, my first niece was born with several more nieces and nephews following within a few years, and I was practically raised with a few of them. So, in effect, I was also an oldest child, because I was often put in charge of them.

Still yet, I was also like a middle child because I fell between these two age groups.  To throw a few more clinkers into the mix, I also had waaay older half-brothers who were only a couple of years younger than my mother. They had children, so I was an aunt who was younger than her nieces and nephews. Are you totally confused yet? Well, join the club!

Add to all that mess the fact that my father died when I was only 9 and my mother remarried when I was twelve and brought two step-brothers who were the same ages as my sisters into it. According to birth order psychology, I probably should be nothing less than a maniacal serial killer....or President of the United States. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

First-borns are usually classified as either compliant or aggressive. In that category, I mostly have compliant traits: such as; people pleaser, craves approval, nurturer, caregiver, reliable, conscientious, cooperative, "grin and bear it" mentality. On the aggressive side, I can identify with: perfectionist, always having things under control (though I rarely do, I still want it that way), conventional, want things my way. Not so much a mover or shaker or a natural leader or driven. My term for myself is "slacker perfectionist".

My middle-born traits come out as: peacemaker, mediator, hates confrontation, reads people well, gets along well with others, stubborn, cynical and suspicious. One of my favorite sayings is "if it sounds too good to be true...." well, you know the rest.

The "only child" characteristics fall much along the lines of first-borns in strengths. However, the weaknesses are right up my alley: self-centered, criticizes self and others, worries too much, feel they're always right (just ask my husband), inflexible, and fearful of trying new things.  That last one is the kicker. I have always let my fear of making a fool of myself stand in the way of experiencing many things in life, especially when I was younger. Do you know that there are two things that most Americans know how to do that I have never learned? I have never bowled and I have never learned to roller skate. I tried it once and never let go of the rail the entire excruciating twenty minutes that I was in the rink and I never tried it again. How lame is that?!!

So, there you have me in a nutshell....and, yeah, I know what that makes ME!  And back to my actual status as the youngest....I'll let you decide which of those traits you think I possess.