Cathy announced that she was pregnant in August, our first summer in England. We were ecstatic. Neither Cathy nor I were practicing Catholics but we certainly came from that background and during our courtship, the idea of having children was exciting to both of us. We felt like adults.
In August, 1968 I was 21 years old and she was 20. We were living on our own in England.
For the first few months Cathy used birth control but she went off the pill as soon as we had settled in. We were the first of our set to have a child among the airmen and their wives who came to Chicksands in 1968. The whole experience was exciting to us. I think one day she went to the medical clinic on base and we met in the Airman’s Club for lunch. She told me we were going to have a child together. I remember the table we were sitting at when she told me.
Sean was born April 25th, 1969. I used to always mix up his birthday with our anniversary on April 20th. Then I made the mnemonic, first we were married and then he was born. Cathy told me the gossips in El Segundo where she grew up were disappointed it was a year after we got married.
We lived in Bedford, about 10 miles from the base. Toward the end of the nine months Cathy had labor pains frequently and two or three times we went to the base and got prepared to go to the Air Froce hospital in London and they called it off, Braxton Hicks contractions or false labor. The last time an ambulance came out to get her and took her to East Ruslip near London. I was told by the doctors,one more time it was Braxton Hicks and normally they would send her home, but since we lived so far away they would keep her and induce labor the next day. I should go home and return in the morning. There was plenty of time.
After a long train trip home and back, I arrived back at the base hospital about 10 o’clock the next morning. I got to see my son Sean for the first time. He had been born two hours before.
From the start, he was an incredible youngster, so beautiful and lovely to look at. He was a delight to be around. Early on he developed a love for cars and we began buying him matchbox cars. He had dozens of them and would spend his time lining them up to play with them. He slept in a crib in the front room. At some point before he was two years old, he learned to climb out of it and play with his cars until we got up. Usually by the time, we joined him he already had them all lined up and running with motor sounds he made.
We bought a used Volkswagen shortly after he was born. He could spot any Volkswagen product from long distances. VW was beginning to manufacture squarebacks and notchbacks and it seemed there were odd VWs wherever Sean looked. We had no clue they were Volkswagens and Sean would announce “Volkswagen!” with great delight.
It was a wonderful time having a baby and Sean was a wonderful baby. We took him around town in a large perambulator, pram (baby buggy) that we bought used. We dressed him warmly and went to parks and took pictures whenever we could. His grandparents from El Segundo came to visit him. His grandmother was worried that if he came to harm unbaptized his soul would go to limbo. My seminary training told me we didn’t a priest to administer the sacrament of baptism, so we baptized him at home to satisfy Minnie. Later Monsignor (Major) O’Donnell made it official at the base chapel.
My sister came to see him and stayed with us for a couple of weeks. Cathy’s brother Alan, a 16 year old, came and stayed part of the summer with us. Alan learned to drink beer at the pubs. I came home from work and he looked dreamy eyed and punchy. Somehow an American 16 year old looks 18 to the British. I guess he was tall enough and well fed. My parents from Burbank came to see their first grandchild. It was the middle of winter and we had to have a doctor to see my mother for a terrible respiratory infection.
Sean began talking in England and by the time we came home, his grandparents and everyone else wanted him to talk to them, because he had an English accent. I think it lasted less than two months. When he was 20 he went back to England from Paris where he was living and got his British passport.
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