Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Big D was Once Little!








Baby Dabby was the only one who had a woman Doctor when he was born. I cannot remember her name, but she was an intern at the Hospital. As you can see, he started his playing career early on. Notice that he had the curly hair back then, too. He was cute as the proverbial bugs ear. I have a bunch of you kids in pictures at the back of the Chapel at Van Maren Ave., in Citrus Heights. This is Dave's entry.
Dad Clark


4 comments:

Jess and Jen said...

That picture in the bucket is the Dave I remember. It also looks exactly like him (amazing how that works). Didn't Dave live in his diaper and nothing else?

The Citrus Heights pic shows a chubby, but cute, kid.

Mike and Adrianne said...

I was going to say, "Was Dave ever little?" He looks like a big baby in the first picture. What a cute baby.

Michelle said...

Jason mentioned to me once that he lost Dave while babysitting once and he was found wandering around on a busy street in his diaper. Is this correct?

Papa Doc said...

Uhhh --- yes, that would be correct, Michelle. Jim's brother & wife came from Utah one day and Jim and I took them out to dinner. All 8 kids were home and we put Jason in charge of babysitting. We had only lived in the particular area for a short time and it was a scary place -- only stayed there 3 months. It wasn't too far from I-80 and another very busy highway. We got home from dinner only to find the kids frantically looking for David. Half the kids thought he was outside playing with the other half and vice versa. So all 7 of them let this kid wander away. Needless to say, I fell apart in my frantic state of mind. Jim was calmer, asking the kids where they had looked, etc. He finally called the police to report a little lost boy. They responded that a little boy that fit the description had just been delivered to the Children's Receiving Home in Sacramento and we could go down there and see if this was our little boy. I dashed into the building and immediately saw David -- now dressed in new clothes with shoes and holding a toy. I ran up to him and he told me to go away. He was having so much fun with all the fuss and new toys that he didn't want to go home with us.
He apparently had tried to follow us when we first left for dinner. He had a diaper on and nothing else. He got clear to the corner of the busy highway and a woman happened to see him. He was saying, "Hot! Hot!" because his little bare feet were buring from the cement sidewalk. She stopped and talked to him and then took him to the phone booth on the corner where she called the police to report a lost child. He also had poopy diapers by this time.
Needless to say, I was terrified and embarrassed. The police made a follow-up visit to our house to see if family services intervention was necessary. Luckily, they were convinced that this was just an accident and not neglect. Jason felt really bad. Things like this happen.
After that, we put a hospital wrist band on David's arm saying, "If found, please return to owner" -- with the phone # on
it. You know, kind of like with a dog. He could unlock any door and climb out any window. He's been doing it ever since!
I was really relieved when we put him in the MTC. It was the first time in 19 years that I knew where he was every night!