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Michael was probably the most inquisitive and curious child I had ever known. Even to this day, I haven’t met another child with his quest for knowledge. He constantly kept us on our toes. He was blessed with some excellent intellectual abilities, and consequently always did well in school. Looking back on his early years though, it must have been tough for him. For the first 4 years of his life, he was the center of attention, then came both Nathan and Nina in quick succession. He "didn’t have a chance" after that – it was baby mania, and we had to work VERY hard at keeping him from feeling left out. I’m not sure how well we did, but my guess is we probably fell short too many times.
Fast forwarding a bit, the
first 15 years of our marriage were the real "building years" and
Michael had to endure the longest stretch of "austerity" in our family’s
history. While in Ohio, I was encouraged to go back to school for my Masters in
Health Administration, and so we moved back to Pittsburgh – living in a
variety of suburbs while I went to graduate school and held two jobs. We
eventually moved to the country in yet another mobile home, However, while we lived by "humble means" we poured any extra cash into some pretty cool vacations - he did get in on those blessings. We had fantastic vacations in Disney, Hawaii and other great places
Unfortunately by the time we were able to buy our first house, Mike was a senior in high school. We were just starting to come into "the American Dream" part of our family history, and Michael had only one year left at home. Such are the disadvantages of being number one son. Michael went into the air force right out of high school, and in November of 1999, he finished a 7 year tour of duty. |
