March 16 through July-ish, 1968: Oh baby, baby

The previous post covered the time shortly after Mom and I arrived in Texas, until Dad arrived almost two weeks later on March 15. Today we'll find out when she finally had that baby. Before the baby arrived there was apparently enough time to have some visitors to our house in Carrollton. Fortunately for us, Dad must have wanted to show off the Polaroid camera he purchased while we were in L. A. First, here is a picture of my maternal grandmother (Nana) and Aunt Sara, with some kid in a Batman t-shirt photobombing them in the background.

Aunt Sara is my grandfather's sister who was mentioned in a few of the letters and turned 99 years old on Christmas day of 2017. Next is a really neat picture that includes a few more people mentioned in Mom's letters.

Seated on the couch, left to right, are: My paternal grandparents, David C. and Jessie Lee Jennings Mom, looking more than a little pregnant Uncle Wayne Steven Aunt Linda And of course that's me on the floor laughing. The other neat thing I love about this picture is the items on the coffee table I was able to identify by zooming in. From left to right, they are: - A pacifier, presumably Steven's - A triangular purple glass ashtray that was a fixture in our house for as long as I can remember (since Mom and Dad both smoked) - The first of two glasses that are part of a set that may still be in the house I grew up in - A mug from the Playboy Club in L. A., with a white Playboy swizzle stick - Two Polaroid pictures - A small ashtray I don't remember, plus a tabletop cigarette lighter I don't remember - A newspaper (It might be the Belton Journal, but I can't tell for sure.) - A small bowl for a small turtle, with a bridge and a plastic palm tree. Snappy apparently made it back to Texas! - The second of two glasses from that set referred to previously The last doctor Mom saw in Los Angeles, Dr. Wright, estimated an early April delivery. But Mom waited until April 25 to deliver my sister Laura at Flow Memorial Hospital in Denton, the same hospital where I was born and where my sister Amy would be born in November of 1969. Dad was very happy not to have a foreign-born child, and he frequently reminded us kids we were fourth-generation Texans. Here's a picture of Laura in the nursery at the hospital.

If I really zoom in on that sign I can definitely see "Jennings," and if I use a little imagination I think I can see 6 lbs., 8 oz., and 19 inches. And here's a super adorable picture of Dad holding me up to the window to see Laura. Note the wall-mounted ashtray behind us.

So what do you do when you bring a baby home? You take pictures of everyone holding the baby. Here's a picture of me holding Laura. Note that I am wearing a Chinatown t-shirt.

Here's a picture of Dad holding Laura. He sure had a lot of hair back then, although you can see his infamous bald spot in its infancy.

And here's a picture of Mom holding Laura.

Is Mom glowing there, or what? Here's a picture of a few relatives who were mentioned in the letters and visited us shortly after Laura was born.

That's Uncle Nate (Dad's brother), Aunt Judy, their daughter Tracey, and me in the Chinatown t-shirt. There are more photos of various combinations of people, but that covers all the visitors I have pictures of from the time we got back to Texas until shortly after Laura was born. I could keep going and give you the rest of my life story, but Laura's birth seems like a good place to stop for now. I am working on a few more posts to wrap things up, and I hope to publish those daily. But don't panic if I do not.