The story goes as follows -- yea many many years ago Mother was very, very pregnant with moi. It was a cold and snowy and icy night and she was riding home on the bus laden with Christmas gifts for her other two children, my big brothers who were all of 4 and 8 years old. My Dad was out of town on a job and wouldn't be back until very late that night.
Mother's water broke on her walk home and she called our family doctor who jokingly said that if it had frozen, she could have skated home...ok bad family joke but I didn't make it up. At some point in time, Dad called to see how she was, pregnant and all and found that she was ready to go to the hospital..."Just sit in that big chair in the hall and I'll be home as soon as I can." said he. Mother always blamed the flat spot on the back of my head on Dad's slow down the delivery method. She didn't actually do as he told her but that was the story she always told me when I asked about that flat spot.
She called a neighbor who came to the house and stayed with the boys while her husband drove Mother to the hospital. I don't know what time she arrived there but I arrived on the scene at 8 PM. Dad arrived some time after that and, more family history here, he went to the nursery to see me before he went to Mother's room. So that was how highly he thought of me and somehow what I always heard was that she was more than a little miffed over that.
Mother died 5 years ago and she was 87 years young and she still told that story in the same way.. she was still miffed, but I finally realized that she was not upset with me and not really upset with Dad... she was just a miffed kind of gal. Lord, I miss her so much today, more than I have in the past 5 years. I think it's because I am the only one to tell that story now and it doesn't sound nearly as good as it did when my Mother told it to me.