Birth

I was born Donald Douglas Ellis to Grace Mary (Allard) Ellis and Gerald Robert Ellis in the Binghamton City Hospital, Binghamton, New York, USA, on April 29, 1946.

I was the second of three bothers to be born at one year intervals then followed by still two more brothers and two sisters at two year intervals.

As an adult, I realized that I was actually the older sister. In a family of seven young children someone has to help the mom with diaper changing, boo-boo patching, and all of that. These duties cannot be done by a first-born male, so they were done by me. Or, at least, that is how I remember it.

Dwellings and Places

When I was born my parents were just about to move from my father's parent's home to a post-World War development called Twin Orchards. This was followed by a quick succession of moves to places vaguely remembered as Aunt Effie's, Powers Road, and so forth.

Other than being chased by the horse, swallowing poison, and digging under the spruce tree, what I remember best from this period was going to kindergarten, or more accurately, not going to kindergarten.

At kindergarten age I was unabashedly a mama's boy and it was very clear that mamas did not go to kindergarten with their sons, but I changed that.

When the bus stopped at our driveway I did not follow my brother up the steps. I ran back into the house and hid under a bed. It was bound to work. My mother was very pregnant with my sister Darlene and could no way crawl under any bed.

I continued to do this for a few weeks and then it was arranged for my mother to accompany me on the bus to kindergarten. This was just fine. We sat side-by-side in the back of the bus and in the classroom.

She did this for a few days, but I returned to hiding under the bed each time the special treatment was denied.

Darlene was born in December. In February Mom crawled under the bed, dragged me out, and put me, screaming, on the bus with a slap on the butt. I took a seat and became a scholar in the normal course.

Beyond Dwellings

In those early homes we lived in and around Binghamton, New York, on Riverside Street - the East side, on Powers Road - somewhere in Conklin, and then moved fifty miles north to Locke, New York. I do not know why.

In the Locke-Moravia school system I started fourth grade in a four-classroom building in Locke. It is now a car repair shop. It had four classrooms - twice as many as in the building I had attended in Conklin.

The class bully, a much bigger kid, beat me most days during September but found someone still smaller in October. He became a New York State Trooper. I do not know why we call them troopers. In Texas he would have become a ranger. in Guatamala he would have had a name people would not say.

After Locke, beginning in 1964, I attended Paul Smith College in New York's pristine Adirondack Mountains for two years. Graduated - then fell into the US Air Force where I stayed six and one-half years until I developed a direction for life.

Uncle Sam paid my way to places like San Antonio, Texas, Rantoul, Illinois, Belleville, Illinois, Tuy Hoa, Vietnam, and Wiesbaden, Germany. Most of this was good.

Dolores

The greatest good fortune in a life full of good fortune has beem my marriage to Dolores Higareda.

I met her in Belleville, llinois near Scott Air Force Base. We honey-mooned two weeks in the Bahamas and three years in Germany.

Mark Scott Abeln has been kind enough to provide a description of the church in Cahokis, Illinois where we were married.

Children

Our children have been huge in my life, there have only been two, but their continued contribution to my life eclipses everything else.

Jeff was born while Dolores and I were celebrating Wiesbaden, Germany, central Germany, and Europe in general. I was in the US Air Force, stationed in Wiesbaden. My sergeant, Marv Bailes, drove us to the hospital where Jeff was delivered. It was the most exciting ride in my life. Dolores was healthy and strong - we expected a wonderful child and received one.

Jeff brought amazing joy to our lives and still does. He was healthy, funny, and very loving from the earliest age. He was so easy to live with our friends cautioned us against a second child - they said the odds were against us. They were funny, but wrong.

After Jeff was born Dolores declared child birth to be something she needed no more of, but one afternoon nine years later in Syracuse, New York she reneged and asked me to bed to make a daughter. Yeah, it was just like that. I don't know if we got it right on that first try, but it was not long before we knew it was right.

Carmen was born on July 31, 1979. Dolores chose morning again, slightly earlier. Jeff spent the interval with our good-friends-up-the-street, the Elkins. Carmen was so small she fit perfectly on my lap between knees and belt. Jeff and I had breakfast out and bought Dolores a big antique rocker for nursing Carmen. What a morning!

After Children

(This written in 2001) Jeff manages a night club in San Francisco's North Beach and will graduate from Golden Gate University in San Francisco next year. This Spring, 2002, Carmen will graduate at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota.

Dolores and I are already enjoying the freedom that comes after child rearing and will become still better at it.