Sunday, June 02, 2019

1970

I was working nights as a Medical Lab Technician and days at the airport twisting wrenches to pay for my flying. I was close to finishing up my CFI so I could take the first step toward becoming a professional pilot. My future wife (FW) was working nights that Summer as a nurse’s aide at the same hospital. I can’t say we met cute but it wasn’t long before we were an item. She was in the UT’s nursing school, I made a lot of trips to Austin that Fall before she transferred to UT Galveston. Neither one of us had a penny to spare but some way we found enough money to be together.

A little back story: Roe v Wade wasn’t decided until Jan 1973. For a couple of years in the late 1960’s I was a very unsuccessful Medical supply salesman but I did have one important client a “Doctor Brown” who had an office in downtown Houston on Milam St. While I never met Dr. Brown I supplied his office with the best medical equipment money could buy and got to know his office nurse well. As you can guess Dr. Brown took care of the rich and well connected Southeast Texans with an inconvenient pregnancy. I wasn’t rich or well connected but I did know his office nurse. 

Shortly after transferring to Galveston, FW found out she was pregnant. We knew by then we were going to marry but not until FW had finished school and had her BS in nursing. I was working two jobs, day and night to pay the rent and finish my flight training. Neither of us could finish our school or training if we married and had a baby. The problem was abortion was illegal, I did know Dr. Brown’s nurse and after much “what do we do” I went to her. Yes FW could get a safe abortion but it would cost $600. Two kids without an extra penny to their name having to come up with $4000 in today’s dollars was devastating. Someway we did it, today I’m not sure how but we did.

If we hadn’t our lives would be ruined, two people that because of an illegal abortion were able to live productive lives. FW went on to a PhD in nursing and I was to have a mildly successful forty year career flying corporate aircraft ending up on a Gulfstream GIV flying almost everywhere in the world before retiring to instruct other corporate pilots.

I’m telling this story because it is imperative that we keep abortion legal, safe, and cheap. FW and I were lucky because by chance I knew a safe abortion provider before Roe v Wade. At that time not many at our social level were so lucky. My and FW’s story is just one of millions then and now and anyone trying to take us back to before Roe v Wade is a cruel and heartless panty sniffing prig of an SOB.

Vote as if your life and your kid's life depend on it, because it does.

ken


7 comments:

  1. MURDER IS NEVER JUSTIFIED.

    ReplyDelete
  2. http://www.stochasticgeometry.ie/2018/05/27/a-busy-weekend/
    I hear ye lad.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mark,

      On both sides of the Atlantic we are living in dangerous times and can no longer afford to let someone else fix it. Good on you folks.

      ken

      Delete
  3. Ken, it was brave of you to write something so personal. Thanks for sharing it.
    Now, you know what's not brave? Leaving an anonymous comment.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Steve,

      Thanks. It is a story I've told very few people, maybe a couple over the last 50 years, but it is also a story I've lived with every day of those years. Not in regret but thankful that I was so lucky. Every time I see some poor sap in a dead end job I remember that could've been me. FW could still be working as a nurse's aide instead of being retired after years of being the head of a nursing school. That's what is at stake.

      We are living in dangerous times and the crazies like the gutless poster are trying to take us back to the world of pre-Roe v Wade. I had to speak up.

      ken

      Delete
  4. You let go with a touchy subject on this. I think it should be the choice of the woman and not the men in congress. It will be interesting now that Trump has packed the supreme court what they will say when the new Alabama abortion law makes it to them. I'm sure that they are betting that the current court will reverse Roe vs Wade.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ralph,

      Yep, they think all the work they have done over the last decades will finally payoff and what is frighting is it may. The is one of the reasons I came out of the closet. They have to be stopped.

      ken

      Delete