Family
Perhaps, someday, I will tell you about my mother, Anna Belle Chambers
Cox McLain, who was a good sport and a great mom, who told stories of her
Pennsylvania youth when lightning hit the barn along with her and her
brother; about my dad, John Peyton Cox, who died much too young but
before that told stories of his youth in Yuma where he got rattlesnake
bit and nearly lost his leg (but went on to be a track star at Compton
high) and of prospecting for gold in California during the depression;
about my brother Tom, who lives in Ashland, Oregon, builds houses, is a
heck of a nice guy, and knows the secret of life; about my four double
cousins Larry, Ray, Reber, and Ellen, about my aunts and uncles whom I so
rarely see, one pair of whom stayed home on the Mifflinburg, Penna farm,
did the milk route in the Amish country and the bottled gas route as well
and magically knew one day that I would get off a train in Pennsylvania
and need a ride to California, another who worked the Union Pacific as
fireman and engineer but who now at about 80 is living his dream as a
Montana cowboy, or my mother's cousin who at nearly 80 is about to retire
for the second time as a professional pilot. What people do, however, is
never as interesting to me as who they are, it's just easier to tell
stories about action. I had an aunt whom I never really knew until one
day shortly before she died, when we had a chance to talk a bit--in my
childhood she had been in the kitchen while the menfolk slept off their
dinners and we kids romped outdoors. She had then seemed a bit stern to
me. But in one brief adult conversation she went to the top of my
favorite people list.
Then, of course there are my boys, David and Jonathan, in their 20's, of
whom I have seen far too little but who have nevertheless turned into the
most amazingly wonderful people. And my daughter, Kelly (known as Kelsey
when there is more than one Kelly in class-- Kel C., get it?) whom I have
been around to help raise, and again I couldn't be more pleased with the
results. All families should be so lucky. Kelly is age 11 as I write
this. People warn us that the teen years won't be so easy, but I'm
betting she'll be a joy right through.
One of my double cousins, Reber Chambers, is married to a fine western
artist Marci Haynes Scott. She scrambles around rodeo rings snapping
pictures of the bull riding and such, getting bumped now and then, later
transforming the experience into remarkable watercolors. I pick them out
for special mention because I just saw them a few days ago as I write
this, and they have a web page at
http://www.nbn.com/people/pcraven/mhshome.html
where you can taste the rodeo.
I'd brag on my wife, Ellen Roecker, about now in this tale except she is
a rather private sort who'd rather I didn't. You might find something
about her on the UW Biostat page, but it won't tell you the pleasure of
being her scuba buddy.
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