{"id":1553,"date":"2020-08-25T22:41:02","date_gmt":"2020-08-26T03:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/?p=1553"},"modified":"2020-08-25T22:41:02","modified_gmt":"2020-08-26T03:41:02","slug":"in-the-beginning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/index.php\/2020\/08\/25\/in-the-beginning\/","title":{"rendered":"In The Beginning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>My life began on Wednesday March 21, 1951.&nbsp; Well, actually, it began when I was conceived around nine months earlier.&nbsp; I was born in the Collin County Hospital of McKinney Texas.&nbsp; My parents Richard and Wanda \u201cDavis\u201d Cloer gave me the name Karen Sue.&nbsp; My Grandparents were Lee and Sadie Davis, and Luther and Bertha Cloer.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My Dad\u2019s real mother passed away when he was three years old after giving birth to another son who only lived couple of days.&nbsp; She died with Toxemia Poisoning, which years later had a big impact on me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My Mom and Dad were very proud that I was born before Easter which would give them a chance to show me off over the holidays.&nbsp; However, I was born with Spinabifida, which in those days Doctors knew little about.&nbsp; Because I had a whole in my back Dr Charlie Wysong would not allow them to take me home from the hospital.&nbsp; He said that I didn\u2019t need to be handled by many people.&nbsp; He also told them over the years of my early life that I was not to ever get a lick on my back, because it could kill me instantly.&nbsp; He also said that most kids in that day that were born with this disease hardly ever lived passed 2 years old.&nbsp; He was and wanted my parents to be very protective.&nbsp; If it had been left up to him I would have never had much of an active life. &nbsp;Well guess what?&nbsp; I did make it passed two years old, and apparently I have lived a full life, although I have had many ups and down due to this disease.&nbsp; I will come back to this later in my book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I want to talk a bit about my grandparents.&nbsp; I don\u2019t remember much about my Grandpa Cloer, because I was very young when he passed away.&nbsp; What I do remember about him is that he had a wooden leg, and he was very sick.&nbsp; I can remember going over to his house, and going to the back bedroom to see him as he lay sick in his bed.&nbsp; One thing that I remember him talking about was that he could feel ants stinging his leg.&nbsp; Remember the wooden leg I spoke of?&nbsp; That was the leg he was referring to.&nbsp; He had a smoke stand that Grandma bought him for his birthday one year.&nbsp; It stood about three feet high, made of steel, pewter and marble.&nbsp; It had lights built into the stand itself.&nbsp; It had a holder for cigarettes, one for matches, one as an ashtray, and it had a built in lighter.&nbsp; Now the lighter itself, looked like a microphone, or at least that\u2019s what I used it for.&nbsp; I would always sneak off into the living room, and I would grab that lighter and sing as loudly as I could, until I got caught.&nbsp; Today, that smoke stand now belongs to me, and it holds so many memories of when I was young.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My Grandma Cloer was a good lady, and I liked going to visit her years after Grandpa was gone.&nbsp; Her Mother, my Great Grandma Martin lived with her for many years of my life.&nbsp;&nbsp; One memory I recall is eating Thanksgiving diner with her.&nbsp; I don\u2019t mean to sound mean, but she made the worst chicken and dressing.&nbsp; She didn\u2019t cook her dressing, and did not de-bone her chicken.&nbsp; Our Mother was gracious enough not to make us eat it.&nbsp; Even after I had grown up and married, I never had the heart to tell her how awful it was.&nbsp; However, there were some things we liked eating there; not everything was bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now my Grandpa Davis lived up until I was six almost seven.&nbsp; I can recall many fun times with him and Grandma.&nbsp; I can actually remember sitting in Grandpa\u2019s lap looking into this big white radio, while listening to \u201cThe Lone Ranger\u201d, \u201cAs the World Turns\u201d, \u201cLove of Life\u201d and \u201cThe Guiding Light\u201d.&nbsp; Looking back, I am amazed at that memory, because that was a part of history that I can relate to my children and Grandchildren today.&nbsp; I loved spending the night with Grandpa and Grandma Davis, and when my twin sisters were born, my brother and I got to stay a week with them.&nbsp; At that time we lived in Fort Worth, and they lived in McKinney, so we thought we were really special staying that far away from Mom and Dad.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I loved my Grandma Davis\u2019 homemade biscuits and gravy.&nbsp; She made the best beans and cornbread ever.&nbsp; I loved how she would get a hymn book and just sit down and sing with me.&nbsp; She was such a wonderful lady and role model.&nbsp; I know where my Mother gets her goodness and compassion from.&nbsp; Later on I will tell about special times with Grandma, and what an influence she had on my life growing up as a child, and even today I feel her presence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My life began on Wednesday March 21, 1951.&nbsp; Well, actually, it began when I was conceived around nine months earlier.&nbsp; I was born in the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1553"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1554,"href":"https:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553\/revisions\/1554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}