Dale Says

For more than 20 years I’ve been writing summaries of what’s going on in my life and in the world around me on my birthday. Here’s an excerpt from 1991 …

April 24, 1991

On my birthday I’m 40 years old.

This is a milestone, for sure. What an incredible year this has been! We bought the most fantastic house and moved in it last month. It’s a Victorian cottage, built in 1885, that is perfect for us! It’s only around 1,100 square feet, but has the possibility of being expanded. It’s a two-level house (the kitchen, dining room, pantry, and an office/guest room are below street level) on a large corner lot, with a detached garage, beautiful terraced garden, and a room above the garage that will someday be another guest room. It’s our dream house!

We bid on the house just before Christmas, then had to walk away from it when we went to Oklahoma for the holidays because the owner thought he would get a higher bid. When we got home there was a message on our telephone telling us the owner had changed his mind and the house was ours! We moved in the third week of March, and are just now getting settled in. There’s some work to be done and some finishing touches to be added, but we already love it! We both got what we wanted, too; Patty got her Victorian house in the City, and I got my garden. It’s going to be a lot of fun for a long time!

For the world this has also been an incredible year! The civilized world ganged up this year to beat a ruthless aggressor. “Good old Sadam” (Hussein) as President Bush calls him, took quite a licking. The Persian Gulf War, as they are now calling it, affected everyone’s lives for 108 days. We were glued to our televisions and radios from August 9, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, until March when Bush declared a temporary cease-fire and an end to the war. There was little talk during that time of anything else. Some people were discussing the possibility of drafting soldiers to supplement the half-million volunteers and reservists that were sent to the deserts of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and there was some talk about cancelling the Superbowl in January.

We were all pretty stunned when the war started. A lot of people I talked to were disappointed that we hadn’t advanced any further as a civilization, and that we still have to settle our differences by war. There were a lot of prayers said and a lot of very relieved people when this situation didn’t turn into a prolonged blood bath.

Patty’s brother, Allan, and his wife were activated by the Air Force and they have flown several missions to Saudi Arabia. They have transported bombs, food, tanks, and soldiers; One of Allan’s planes was full of wounded American GI’s, some as a result of a SCUD missile attack on a barracks.