Did Not See That Coming!

For a time, we lived in an old house on Harold St. in Portland, OR. BreAnne and Krista were our only children, but Josiah was on the way. It was during August, and we were out in the yard enjoying the day.

I do not remember how it got started, but Bre was three and Krista was one and just barely walking. Bre had a squirt gun, and I had a squirt bottle. It was enough for a water fight. With our backs turned to her, Bre snuck up behind us and squirted us with her squirt gun. I wheeled around with my squirt bottle to return fire, and Bre would scamper away out of range out of my superior firepower, and all of us would laugh including the neighbor's across the street. Then we would turn our backs again, and the game would continue. During all this of this, Krista did her best to steer clear of the fight.

This went on for three or four iterations when we noted the neighbors were laughing AND pointing.

Via Google Images

De'Etta and I both heard Bre sneaking up on us so I was preparing to return fire. When I guessed she was about five feet away, I spun around to take up the fight only to discover that BreAnne had changed the game. When we spun around we were greeted by the full fury of the garden hose. She got tired of the meager output of her squirt gun. Before we could do anything, our three year old drenched us. She, next, turned her arsenal on her one year old sister, Krista.  We did not see that coming.  The neighbors laughed. We laughed as we ran out of range. We had no choice but concede the fight. We were completely outgunned and outsmarted by our three year old.

We learned to never underestimate that little girl or any of our children - ever. 

Inner Tubes and Vapor Locks

When BreAnne was just a baby, we went on a road trip with Grandma and Grandpa G.  They drove their Arrow motorhome and we drove our Nissan Stanza.  We were going to Colorado for a vacation.

Via Google Images

Our route took us across eastern Oregon through Winnemucca.  It was August, and it was hot.  The highway is through some very barren land.  There is a place where it appears to be heading straight into the base of a towering cliff, but at the last moment, the road turns to the right and takes a slanting, uphill direction to reach the top of the cliff.  We occasionally changed up drivers in the vehicles.  For this leg, I drove the motorhome and G-pa drove the Stanza.  On the way up the side of the cliff, through the waves of heat, you could see the occasional wrecked car laying at the bottom of the drop-off as a reminder of the unforgiving nature of this section of roadway. It was a narrow, two lane road with a hint of a shoulder on both sides.  It was as I noted these things about the roadway I felt the barest hint of a hiccup from the engine.  We were about halfway up the incline.  I pressed on the gas harder hoping to clear the top before any more hiccups occurred.  Within seconds, more hiccups, readily discernible, no-nonsense hiccups were coming.  There comes a point in time when a person has to admit that plan A is not going to happen, and a plan B is necessary.

Via Google Images outside of Winnemuca, NV

As the engine hiccupped and died halfway up the side of the cliff with no way to turn around and no civilization within 75 miles, plan B was only a wish.  G-pa and DeEtta pulled up and stopped behind us.  It was an easy guess that we were the victims of vapor lock - that condition where the fuel vaporizes in the fuel line, but the fuel pump cannot push it through.  So, you have a couple of choices. You can wait for the vapor lock to clear on its own, but this usually requires it to cool down - the sun was not going to be setting for many hours. Or you can get a tow truck to pull you into town and to, well, do nothing that time and cool temps wouldn't already do.  After a few vain attempts at starting the engine, we realized we needed to hunker down and wait. Yes, we could send the women and BreAnne on ahead to Winnemucca to get a hotel for the night, and we would catch up with them later, but they decided to hang out with us on the side of the cliff overlooking some car wreckage as the sun blazed down, a hot wind assaulted us, and there was no one in sight - except for a semi truck going in the opposite direction, there would be no one, at all.  We sought the occasional relief in the A/C of the Stanza, but the baby needed far more than we did - as nice as it was. At times, we would try the engine - no luck.

Via Google Images - none hanging from gas tank

As we waited, G-pa and I talked and thought. Sometimes this is dangerous, but in this instance, it was nothing short of synergistic brilliance, if I may say so myself.  😉What was needed, I said was some way to push the vapor lock on through the fuel line.  Maybe we could get some air pressure on top of the fuel?  Well, we were not going to blow into the tank, that was for sure, but perhaps we could use an air pump to put some pressure in the tank.  It would not take much pressure.  Maybe 10 psi or 15 at the most.  G-pa had a tire pump in the back storage compartment, but we could not get a good seal.  Then G-pa remembered he had an inner tube in the back.  It was for floating down rivers and such, but how to get it to seal around the filler tube.  Well, this is an old school type of vehicle with a filler tube that protruded out the side of the vehicle. No smooth, aesthetically pleasing lines for this RV, and it was a good thing.  G-pa also found a large hose clamp in the back storage compartment.  We cut a one inch hole in the side of the inner tube, fit it over the mouth of the gas filler tube and clamped it with the hose clamp.  We then began to pump up the inner tube.  Once the inner tube had some shape and a bit of pressure, I hopped into drivers seat and gave it a try. After a couple of tries, the engine roared to life in a very satisfactory manner.  The inner tube hung out side the window of the driver's seat.  I grabbed hold of it and put us into gear. We were off, inner tube clamped to the filler tube hanging off of the side of the RV zooming our way to the top. 

In the quiet of a Hospital Room

Shortly after Jared was born in 1994, he contracted RSV, a very aggressive respiratory virus known to be fatal to the very young and the very old. Since Jared was only a couple of weeks old at the time, it was very serious stuff. 

It was one of freezing, sub-zero January nights in Hardin, MT.  After some wrangling with the local on-call nurse, De'Etta brought him in to the ER at our little hospital.  The doc met us there and found that Jared really was in dire straits.  He put him on 100% oxygen, gave him some meds, and began watching him very carefully. The doc said Jared would not have survived the night. De'Etta's five-day vigil began. I had the other four kids at home during this time.  As much as I was able, I came by the hospital to check on the two of them. 

It was about day 4 that the medical staff felt he was "out of the woods," but they wanted to keep him there a day or so longer to make sure there was no relapse and that he had completely recovered.  Jared was taken out of the oxygen tent and both he and De'Etta went to a private room. It was about five in the afternoon when I went to the hospital to see how everyone was doing.  The door was closed so I opened it oh, so quietly and carefully.  The light was out and the room was dark.  There was a dim bit of light coming from a floor light, but it was so dim, it took a bit of getting used to it to be able to see by it. 

De'Etta and Jared were both asleep.  I quietly closed the door behind me turning to go to De'Etta's bedside and promptly tripped over the legs of a hospital tray and fell to the floor.  There was a stainless steel bowl on the tray which also fell to the floor with me.  This bowl clanged with all of the vigor of a church bell on Easter morning. I groped for it in the dark to silence it, but I knew both of them would be awake and Jared would be crying.  I was laying on the floor clutching the bowl bracing myself for all of the tumult to come, but it never came.  No crying. De'Etta still slept. The room returned to total quiet. I laid there for a moment being thankful I had not somehow awakened either when suddenly I heard Jared give a barely audible cry. Suddenly, De'Etta flipped on a light, jumped out of bed, stepped over the top of me and went straight to pick up Jared.  She then turned around holding Jared.  As she did so, she suddenly stopped and saw me laying on the floor. "When did you get here?, and what are you doing on the floor?" 

She had slept through me knocking a stainless steel bowl onto a hard tile floor as I fell in the dark.  Jared gives a tiny, little cry, and she is up and moving. Without seeing me laying on the floor, she stepped over me as she was determined to get to Jared. Now, that was some amazing maternal focus.