The rubella epidemic of 1964-65

So you think it doesn't matter if you vaccinate your child, that it's your choice? And what about my choice, my child? In 1964 we didn't have the vaccine (available by 1969), and I was pregnant in my first trimester and exposed by a neighbor who had rubella. She didn't know I was pregnant and I didn't know she had the measles until she mentioned it. We named him Patrick Howard. Born with multiple defects incompatible with life November 17, 1964. http://www.vashonloop.com/article/rubella-epidemic-1964-65

Dr. Anna writes:  Rubella immunization has cut down the cases of congenital rubella syndrome significantly. Many people who get rubella don't know they have it, even at the height of the disease course. It can be very mild, and the rash can be very faint. I don't remember having rubella, and my mother didn't remember me having it either, but I have a positive rubella titer (immune to rubella).

Bernadine Dohrn, co-host of Obama’s career-launching fundraiser

From attacking "pigs" to attacking an innocent baby in the womb and the mutilation of Sharon Tate. And in 1993 she, the happy little homemaker, child-care expert, was still amazed that people thought so little of her!

"Much like Vladimir Lenin’s ever-widening category of people considered “harmful insects,” destined for death or the gulag, Bernardine’s category of “pigs” was rapidly expanding. In the very recent past, the pigs had been America’s police and boys in Vietnam. Now, Bernardine was about to enrich the brethren at the War Council with her thoughts on the vicious Tate-LaBianca murders executed by the satanic Charles Manson “family.” The victims would get no sympathy from the future childcare advocate, who, here in Flint, was hell-bent on herding their mutilated bodies into her widening “pigs” category.

The girl from the Midwest flew off the hinges, waxing lustfully over the demonic spectacle of the criminally insane mutilation of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and her friends by the swastika-tattooed Manson brood. The crime done by the Manson clan is too mortifying to describe here, particularly the ripping open of Tate’s belly, but it wasn’t to Bernardine Dohrn. The future professor of child education at Northwestern saw a kind of deliciousness in these true Manson “revolutionaries.” She imbibed at the image of the cabal’s dehumanization of Tate, gleefully sharing her feelings with the assembled. Dohrn thrilled:

Dig it! First they killed those pigs. Then they ate dinner in the same room with them. Then they even shoved a fork into the victim’s stomach! Wild!

It was two days after Christmas, when America was still celebrating the image of the birth of the Christ child. Bernardine, however, was celebrating the image of the slaughter of the Tate child

Guest Post: Tracing the Origins of the Days of Rage Protest « RickMick

Friday Family Photo--the baby quilt

February 1969, patchwork baby quilt made by my mother.

"Of all the treasures I can boast
I love the patch-work quilt the most.
She pieced it in the long ago,
With patient stitches, fine and slow,
Each block devised of dark and light
Small diamond pieces, looking quite
Like piled-up boxes, or like stairs
To lead you upwards unawares.

I almost hear her voice once more
And see the quaint old things she wore,
The dolman, and the Paisley shawl,
Myself a child again, and all
My childish faith and love surge up
To fill my worn heart's empty cup;
Of all the things she once possessed,
I love the patch-work quilt the best."

"The Patch-Work Quilt," by Eve Egleston Hoyt, 2nd and 6th verses
If I'd made a few notes in 1969, I could have identified most of the fabric in this patch work quilt my mother made. Not today. The memories are gone. In fact, I lifted this photo and poem from my Memory Patterns blog written in 2005--and reading through it, if I hadn't recorded some of those items even 5 years ago, they'd be lost forever. Even if you have no interest in blogging current events as I like to do, a blog is wonderful for family memories and photos (but please, not every step they take--be selective).

And here are the babies in my daughter's kitchen, just yesterday as we went over the river and through the "woods" to celebrate Thanksgiving at her house. Oh, I love having adult children who can cook for me. We had the most fabulous leftovers for dinner last night--and they sent the carcass home with me--we'll have wonderful soup and casseroles.

We had a wonderful holiday, and I hope you all did too.