Chapter 1: Ice Station Zebra

Posted on March 15, 1993 by jeb

The Blizzard of ’93 hit while Danny and I huddled in our sleeping bags in the new $120 tent with Bennett and Robert. Ted and Shawn were asleep in the smaller tent. Four-year-old Robert made the discovery.

Thirty minutes before it hit, I got up at 7 am to make a call on nature. The woods were soaked. It had rained all night. I hadn’t slept well, listening for the rain to turn to sleet or snow, and worrying that Danny wasn’t warm enough.

The day before had been been the longest day of my life, I decided. (The longest night was with Ted C. in Little River Canyon.) Packing for our camping trip to the Okefenokee, I had stayed up until 1 am, counting on being able to nap during the 5 hour trip south.

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Fun With Coughing

Posted on February 12, 1993 by jeb

Danny and I are home sick together today. Kelly started all of this. A range of sniffles, coughing and headaches.

Yesterday Danny told Nicole to listen to a new cough he had invented. He has had a bad cough, so he’s figured out about 3 or 4 different ways to cough. This drove Nicole crazy which cracked Kathy up.

Then he started coughing songs. This really made Nicole mad.

I had to admire him. Instead of whining and complaining about his condition, he uses his imagination to make the most of his problem. He has a great spirit.

Nicole on the other hand, makes the worse of the smallest bug bite to the extent that we don’t know when to give her sympathy. That’s why her recent louse bout took a few extra days to notice and 3 treatments to wipe out.

Took some pictures of Kelly sitting up with Danny today. She’s had some terrific happy episodes lately. She gets the biggest eyes and grin in the morning. Makes it hard to go to work.

Danny’s First Diary Entry

Posted on February 4, 1993 by jeb

This is Danny’s first writing:

Basbl

M a m m Dad Yntu ciufr

Basbl We want hom Awpt Basbl

Airm Basbl ShOoz

Wwtoomiy

Iymi shmflbl

which translates to:

Baseball

Me and my Dad I signed up for

Baseball. We went home and practiced baseball.

I wore my baseball shoes.

We went to my (grand pa’s house)

I stole my uncle’s football t-shirt.

Play Time On The Grass

Posted on January 30, 1993 by jeb

Danny and I kicked off Danny’s baseball career this morning. Cobb county had just been in the news for the long overnight lines that had formed for the limited youth baseball positions.

So Danny and I set out at 9am for Stone Mountain village to get in line for the 10am registration. Three other people were there already. I don’t think they had camped out.

Danny is excited. He was fitted for a uniform that he won’t get until just before the first game.

Oddly enough, he seems most excited about selling his share of raffle tickets.

We got back early enough for the second half of O.M. Kathy was able to get the first scene of “The Grocer’s Daughter” completed. Danny is going to be the stage manager and understudy. He has already come up with a good idea. We will paint grocery store scenes on one side of our background, and turn them around for the next scene in Good Food Land.

It is sunny and warm enough for Kelly to have her first play time on the grass. She propped herself up on her tummy, pulling at the grass, collecting pine needles, and rustling a nearby leaf. Something is emerging around the mailbox. Kathy thinks they are daffodils, which were not there last year when we moved in, so I can’t figure out where they would come from.

Venus and A Practical Use of Sine

Posted on January 27, 1993 by jeb

Monday night, Danny and I went out to buy 2 mirrors for a homemade periscope. We ended up buying two 99¢ cosmetic mirrors. Last night we made the periscope.

One of the greatest challenges was to figure out the length of cardboard that would be used to support the main mirror. I knew the diameter of the tube was exactly 3″ and that the angle had to be 45°. Seems like sine or cosine would help. After a lot of doodling, the formula x = 3″ ÷ sine(45) would give the correct length. Worked perfectly.

That may be my first practical use of sine.

On our mirror hunt, Danny noticed a bright star near the moon. It was a hazy night, and the light was so bright, that I suggested that it was an airplane. I couldn’t even see any other stars.

Then as Nicole and I drove home from Tuesday night Sunday school, we noticed the star again, The night was clearer. I figured it had to be a planet. Over at Jim and Barbara O’Callaghan’s, I had noticed a big telescope. Nicole called Aaron to ask her if they could look at this star/planet. Turns out their telescope wasn’t working, but Jim said it was Venus. We also called Fernbank and got confirmation from the planetarium man. This is the best view of Venus we’ll have for eight years.

Tonight, we went to the planetarium show “The Skies Before Columbus” hoping to get a peek at Venus through the big telescope. The show was good, but we have to wait until Thursday or Friday evenings when telescope viewing is open to the public.

All-in-all we’ve had a couple of nights of mathematical and scientific achievement.

Covert Operations

Posted on January 24, 1993 by jeb

Danny had two parties to attend on Saturday. Bowling at Jessica’s party and playing over at Shawn’s. As we parents picked up kids at the Regan’s house, Bennett and Alice started talking about Armenian Montes.

An impromptu dinner party was set up over at our house. Master chefs Bennett and Alice came with Taylor, Robert, and Mary. Nancy, Ted, Frank, Stephanie, Frank and Elizabeth also came. Elizabeth and Stephanie were in fairly pregnant form.

We spent the evening making the pasta boats filled with ground lamb. The other secrets are the broth and the parsley and yogurt sauce. I was in charge of the hot dog fondu to feed the kids. They had their choice of ketchup and chocolate.

We had a great time.

Today we went to Barbara and Jim O’Callaghan’s for dinner. They have just recently moved to Atlanta. Jim is retiring from the special forces. He has a lot of amazing stories about mountain climbing, missions behind the Iron Curtain, Vietnam, and covert operations.

The kids enjoyed playing Nintendo with their cousins.

Gooday Sunshine

Posted on January 14, 1993 by jeb

[Nicole writes…]

Last Tuesday in drama we auditioned for a play. I did the song Gooday Sunshine. Here’s how the song go’s,

”Gooday sunshine

Gooday sunshine

Take a walk

The sun is shining down

Burns my feet as they touch the ground

You feel good

You know your looking fine

I’m so proud to know that you are mine”

Nicole Sunshine | Danny Shine

Kelly Rolls

Posted on January 14, 1993 by jeb

Kelly is officially mobile. Laying on her back, she lifts her feet and grabs her toes. She has learned that by doing this, she turns into a ball and rolls over on her side. Once on her side, she lifts one leg up and her head which turns her over on her stomach. She can then continue in the same direction by tumbling over on her back (which she has been able to do for some time.)

Having traveled about 10 inches (the same length as a Crevice Spiny lizard), she can pick up the object of her desire. Her little solar system toy is her favorite.

Godzilla in the Corner

Posted on December 5, 1992 by jeb

Danny got lucky. His eye looked terrible, but the eye doctor said the scratches on the cornea had already healed. His eye became the subject of much discussion in Mrs. Wys’ class. As they did their calendar ritual each day this week, the color of Danny’s eye was recorded. He has healed quickly, going from black and purple to purple and green to yellow and red.

Nicole brought home Godzilla for the weekend. He just sits in the corner and doesn’t do much. Nicole says he is a Crevice Spiny lizard. Godzilla is about 10 inches long. He has a black collar. Looks a lot like the horny toads Ted and I used to catch in Isle of Palms.

This morning we had our second Odyssey of the Mind “OM” meeting. Kathy is the coach. Her co-coach doesn’t help, so I’m the default co-coach/baby sitter. We used the basement where the kids could do minimal damage. They danced to different moods, told a story in a circle, and drew pictures from random shapes I drew. The meeting finished with popcorn and a punch concoction I made from left over sodas we had in the closet.

We picked up our Christmas Tree today. It is a Douglas Fir and the largest tree we’ve ever had. It clears the ceiling by about a 1/4″. I started putting the lights on, but Kathy fired me because I wasn’t tucking them inside the tree. Last year she fired me because I was tucking them inside the tree. Last year she wanted to be able to hang ornaments on the wires. I guess she doesn’t want to do that this year.

Let history record that I am a very patient husband and father. If my family says otherwise, they simply are not credible witnesses.

Throwing Pitch Forks

Posted on November 29, 1992 by jeb

Just as he was getting over his ear infection that kept him out of school for a week with a fever, Danny had an accident. Yesterday afternoon, he and Hayden were throwing pretend pitch forks at each other. One caught Danny in the right eye.

Kathy and I heard him screaming home. Hayden was walking with him. His eye looked bad. It was purple and it looked like a marble was under the swollen lid. We all got in the car and drove to the emergency room. Danny held an ice pack on his eye all the way. He said that he could sort of see. Some things were black and white and some things color.

I carried him in. The triage nurse said it didn’t look like the eyeball was punctured and directed me to a registration nurse. As I held Danny in my arms, the registration nurse started with her list of questions. She didn’t get past asking for my zip code when I asked her if someone could look at Danny’s eye. I would be glad to answer all her questions after that.

That got us in. The triage nurse looked more carefully at Danny’s eye and then had him read an eye chart. He did real well considering he has only a recent command of the alphabet. He stood behind the line by himself, one hand over his good eye, his hurt eye swollen. I was relieved.

We rented The Empire Strikes Back and moved the couch so that Danny could be comfortable and close to the TV. He fell asleep before it started.

Kathy, who does not care for science fiction movies, played with Kelly in the sitting room. It was Kelly’s 3rd month birthday and she laughed (giggled) for the first time.

Nicole and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie.

[Danny’s version transcribed…]

Me and Hayden were throwing pitch forks at each other. We had to go to the doctors because I got hit in my eye with the pitch fork. They had to cover my good eye and they made me read the letters. I wasn’t right on some of them and I was right on some of them. After that they put me on a scale to see how much I weigh. I went into this bed and they put lots of eye drops, water, on my eye. I cried. They had to turn off the lights and they looked at my eye with a flashlight. Then they looked at my eye with another flashlight. I cried because I didn’t like it shining in my eyes. Then they had to put a double patch on my eye. Then I went to go home. I fell asleep at the start of Star Wars.

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