Sam, he is

Many of my days' hours are spent watching my only sibling struggle for each breath; nothing is easy for him. Tomorrow will mark the beginning of his 9th week since he has been able to walk, talk, eat, sit up.....etc. I read the following to his wife last night, and we all got a badly needed chuckle.


We had just moved to Dexter, New Mexico. While I was recuperating from a badly sprained ankle, Sammy had the freedom to explore and to meet other kids. About the third day, he came home with a black eye. Mother and Daddy both quizzed him. He did not want to talk about it in front of Mother so he and Daddy took a walk.

The story, as I recall it, came out that he had met some other boys. His description of them was vague, but they were about his age and wore felt hats with pop bottle lids attached somehow and they rode bikes. Apparently Sammy decided to explore around the edge of the cotton field and had ended up almost back at the highway in a shaded area near a church yard when he happened across these boys about his age but much bigger.

Anyway, somehow in the process of getting acquainted, one of the boys called him a :”Son of A Gun.” He put up his dukes and told the boy to take it back. It was not hurtful to him to be called such a name, but He was not going to get by with calling my Mother “a Gun.”