Our three kids seemed to enjoy living in the Washington area, even if there were limited opportunities in the immediate neighborhood. Our next-door neighbors in Rockville, the Ditchey’s, had children about their same age, but I don’t recall how much they might have played together. Then, again, I did not have a lot to do about their day-to-day lives at the time. I was there for emergencies.
In January 1969, Karen had gone to the grocery store when Kip came running upstairs, crying loudly. While playing with Ken in the rec-room, he had been crawling under the coffee table and rammed his head into its edge. A four-by-ten-millimeter hole resulted. While I attempted to stop the flow with direct pressure, I sent Deb over to the Thybergs to ask for a ride to the hospital. I had no idea when Karen would get back or how serious the break was. I did manage to stop the profuse bleeding and saw that the cut was too wide to leave open. So, Bob and I took him to the Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, while Sally stayed with Deb and Ken (and cleaned up the mess, I might add.)
The nurse in the emergency room took Kip off immediately, while I filled out some forms. When, after forty-five minutes, they brought Kip out, I learned he had required five stitches – received, I heard, without any crying, complaints, or other events. He had spent the time talking to the staff. I felt that, at three-and-one-half, he had more guts than I did, being thirty years older.
The next day he was fine, except for a band-aid on his forehead. We took him to get a “Billy Blast Off” in payment for his cooperation. With it went a “warning” to him, Ken and Deb that there would be no more “rewards” for getting hurt. There were no other significant accidents, although a year or so later, Ken suffered rug-burns administered, so they claimed, by accident, while Deb and he had been doing some roughhousing. We were fortunate; none of the kids ever broke a bone.
Disciplinary problems were other matters. Parent-teacher conferences went well for Deb who seemed to enjoy school. With Ken, they said he goofed off as often as he could. He seemed to learn rapidly enough, perhaps, too readily, and boredom often overcame him, leading to his mischief in the classroom. He was able to sing the alphabet song before Deb started first grade and was the one who “shamed” her into learning it. He was not challenged, even mathematically, since he could readily do simple multiplication and division in his head while in the first grade. His concept of fractions was better at that time than mine was years later.
On a recurring basis, the three of them presented minimal problems for me; I was the typical, mid-1960s father who went to the office every day. Consequently, Karen became the family nurturer and problem-solver. My responsibility was to see that they went to Mass on Sunday, an occasion which always ended with either donuts or bagels. However, most of the time we tried to promote a joint-front and consistency. On the other hand, at an early age they had learned, especially the boys, that the easiest way to escape any punishment for wrongdoing was to create a disagreement between Karen and me about the potential outcome we might be planning toward them. If we disagreed, they could get away with almost anything.
The major times we spent together were on brief trips to the museums downtown and our extended summer vacations. All three of them enjoyed a long visit to Annapolis with its bright sun, military cannons and boats. The same was true for Monticello and Williamsburg and their early exposure to American history. It was on one of these trips that the boys bought their one and only guns: replicas of colonial pistols which fired caps. Otherwise, games of war had to be fought with fingertips and imagination.
Our favorite site for a summer vacation was Kitty Hawk. The long drive there and back had one “interesting” recurring event: a rest-stop every few hours. Ken said he got to know just about every gas-station between Rockville and North Carolina. Everyone enjoyed the beach and the wind. The only problem was Karen’s fear of heights. She climbed the Lighthouse at Kitty Hawk but refused to step onto the open balcony. The enclosed summit of the Washington Monument was more acceptable. Her phobia of open-air heights lasted until years later, when she finally rode sky-lifts to the tops of several Alpine mountains where we looked down upon air-gliders who ran over the edge of cliffs and sailed to the valleys below. I wonder: did the Wright brothers ever visit Switzerland?
I believe this was no accident. Ken was pretending to be a bull fighter, while I was the bull. He held his “cape” in front of the table without my knowledge. He thought the resulting collision would be Bugs Bunny funny. It was not!