(Rookie Angel Clarence confers with George Baily in the classic film “It’s a wonderful life. Photo Frank Capra courtesy Warner Brothers).

Considering the body of information available on the Miracle in question- that being the birth of a child- I was amazed at the paucity of data on the objective start of onset of the Big Moment. Naturally, I wanted to be as sober as possible, as The Plan included full participation in the event. It was challenging to maintain exactly the right chemical balance in my blood stream to neither be too incapacitated to navigate nor so straight that the gravity of the situation became entirely and blindingly real.

At dinner at the Cannon Club at what had ben Fort Ruger, we arrived at the dessert course and my wife determined she was not ready to dance the night away at the Captain’s Table Disco-rama. Instead, she announced that she preferred to change clothes and head up to Wahiawa General Hospital.

“Keep it together,” I said to myself as we arced across the Liliou’kalani Memorial pre-Overthrow of the Monarchy Expressway. According to the reports from the right seat, the pains were reportedly coming with increasing rapidity. At length, we crested the long rise to Red Hill and grabbed about two feet of air before bottoming out on the way to the homestead at McGrew Point in lovely Aeia.

The slick black AMC Spirit hatch-back fishtailed briefly and we popped out onto the Kamahameha Highway. Then a brisk port lurch and I slewed the car onto the lawn of our posh suburban bungalow.

Not knowing the timeline ahead, and drawing only on my Dad’s description of the mystery that attended my own birth, I tried to be prepared for any contingency. Back in the day, the fathers were excluded from the process, and confined in a waiting area. I apparently arrived as he was examining a piece of apple pie in the canteen of Mount Carmel Mercy Hospital in Detroit.

The wife had been packed for weeks, so that was no problem. I threw some trifles in a bag for myself, which included:

A History of the Attack on Pearl Harbor, with attached maps and charts;
A personal entertainment sound system;
Four packs of Barclay cigarettes;
Spare flints for the Zippo lighter.

By the time all was in readiness, my wife had reclined on the couch and the pains had subsided. I was fairly confident at that point that we were dealing with early labor and brewed a cup of coffee to go with a shot of Amaretto, a Doctor-recommended analgesic.

My mother-in-law had been with us for days, have made travel arrangements across the broad pacific based on the expected due date. We stayed up until the wee hours watching Jimmy Stewart’s “It’s a Wonderful Life.” You know the story, since the movie has become an institution at the holidays. A young man is trapped in a small town by an inexorable series of financial and familial entanglements. I determined at some point before Uncle Billy lost the $8,000 dollars that the best possible course was to join my wife in the rack, a place to which she had drifted in a thoroughly sensible manner some hours before.

Tomorrow: Little Feets

Copyright 2015 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com

Twitter: @jayare303