Quick Story

Friday Night Smackdown is almost over and then it's my turn to watch TV, so I'll write this quickly. While in Utah we found one box in my sister's basement of papers and photos from my parent's home. We read letters our children had sent to their grandparents, letters from my Dad to his family when he was a newlywed in the 1940's, letters from his siblings, letters my maternal grandfather wrote, all sorts of treasures. We haven't read all of them yet, but the ones we did read were like reading a journal of the past. Great fun.

In the box was a full size page from the Idaho Falls newspaper from 1965 (I think that was the year). It was a photo spread of the New Year's baby born that January and the pictures were taken a few months later as they followed him through his morning routine.

It had his name and pictures with his mother, all sorts of cute baby photos. I'm not sure if my parents knew the family or they just saved the newspaper cause they thought it was cute.

Well I love doing detective work and over the years have returned a few birth announcements to people. So I took the clipping and my daughter and I started by looking up his name in the city he was born and there he was, (Dexonline, thank you very much). He had the same middle name as his Dad's first name.

So this week I typed him up a note and put the newspaper clipping in the mail. I wrote in the note that I was going to call him on the phone and tell him I had some naked photos of him, but I thought that might not be the best approach.

He should receive it in the mail tomorrow. I included my email so he could tell me he received it and that he was the right person. We can assume his parents kept copies of the newspaper page, but still wouldn't it be fun to get it in the mail all these years later from a total stranger?

One time I returned a birth announcement to someone in Oregon that said, "we've adopted a baby". I could only hope that by now being in his 50's he knew he was adopted and he didn't have to learn it from me! Well that one did turn out okay.

Here is an excerpt from an email I received from someone after sending them their birth announcement:

Dear Trudy,
Just now I checked our mail and discovered an envelope from someone I didn't recognize. So with surprise and wonder I opened it to find my birth announcement. How special! Thank you so much for going to all the trouble to send it to me! It is in such good condition after nearly 60 years. That's amazing.
Thank you so much for the effort you made. We now have 9 grandchildren of our own and so to receive a different birth announcement is very special. May God bless you

I'll let you know if I hear back from the New Year's Day baby.