These two baby girls are cousins. They were born 7 days apart.

Emma (on the left) and Kimi (on the right).

Isn’t it amazing that they were born in 2010? Last week I was in Idaho Falls, Idaho and I had a brief visit with my Grandma Ball. She’s old. She’s 95 this year, born in 1915. That was nearly 100 years ago!

And here are these two baby girls. Freshly born with their entire future ahead of them. It’s interesting to me.

Mindy, my sister on the left was mistreated by me as a youngster. We shared a paper route in 1985. I went through a long stint of sleeping on the trampoline with Jake, my brother at the same time. For some reason we thought it was comfortable. It was October, I think, when Mindy came out to tell me to get up. It was time for the paper route. I cursed “why don’t you just do it?”

She was standing on a stool. It was dark. There was a lot of frost on the ground. She fell backwards and landed on her elbow. She screamed and howled. I hissed “Shut up! You’re fine. Just be quiet!”

She had broken her elbow.

I always forced her to deliver the 2 papers to the adjacent street. I made her do it because I was a despotic sociopath. Each morning as Mindy was delivering her papers, Mia the dog threatened her. One morning Mia, the dog, became bold enough to chase Mindy. Mindy fell and really tore up her knees. She came home sobbing and bloody.

Not long after that I was fired from the paper route. I had thrown the entire bag of papers into an irrigation ditch. I was tired of delivering papers.

Mindy and my other sister Charity were talking about my misbehavior one afternoon in the living room. I stood around the corner listening into the conversation.

Following a litany of accusations and sorrowful truths Mindy said. “Jon never should have gotten that paper route.”

Charity replied “I know, the only reason he got it was for the money!”