WINTER OF THIRTEEN PLUS ONE

     The winter of 1960 was extremely snowy and we always listened to the children's TV show Ranger Hal in the morning on snow days to see if Fairfax County would cancel school for that day.  I was thirteen and my Mom was in the last two months of her pregnancy in January and February.  If it was a snow day Mom would get out the sled and she and I would walk from Ardmore through Warren Woods and Westmore subdivisions down Maple Street to Main Street (Rt. 236) to the 7/11 to get bread, milk, and potato chips and coke.  My Mom had developed a craving for potato chips and cokes during her pregnancy that lasted the rest of OUR lives.  In this day and age of pregnant ladies not doing anything that would put the baby in jeopardy I can't imagine now how my Mom, great with child, would walk in the snow on unshoveled sidewalks to the store but you do what you must.  It was a fun adventure for me walking in the snow with my Mom and I'll always remember it fondly.
     1960 was a Leap Year and my Mom went into labor on February 29th much to her consternation.  Uncle Claude came out to stay with her till Daddy came home from National Airport (now Reagan) to take her to the old Alexandria Hospital on Duke Street where all us kids were born.  We were sent off to school all excited and anxious.  My Mom was determined that her youngest was not going to be born on February 29th and only have a real birthday every four years so my Dad had to convince her to get out of the car at the hospital and go in.  As it happened though Mom had a long labor and early in the morning on March 1, 1960 Daddy called us from the hospital to tell us IT'S A GIRL!!  Mom's labor was long because the baby was breach and came bottom first.  Mom had a wonderful doctor whose name I don't know now but in this day and age they would probably have given her a Cesarean.
     Now for the naming of the baby.  I had a good friend at school whose name I admired-Kimberly Ann Christensen-who was new to Westmore Elementary as I had been the year before.  I had never heard the name Kimberly before and was in love with it and convinced my parents to name my new baby sister Kimberly Ann.  As it turned out there must have been a million baby girls named Kimberly born in 1960 and the decade following.  My own daughter is Kimberly Robin.
     The birth of my baby sister completed our family with me the oldest, Linda next twenty two months younger, and my brother Fred who was about five years younger than me.  My baby sister is thirteen years younger than me and that's the same age difference as my maternal Grandmother and her older sister.  Imagine that.