Hilary or Peter?

 Hilary or Peter?

The year was 1975. Connie and I were pregnant with our second child who was due in late May. I was teaching science to 6-8 students at good old Albany Grade School. I was also a basketball coach and track coach.

What else was unique was the implementation of Title IX. For those of you who were not around, Title IX required all schools receiving any federal funding to offer equal sports opportunities for girls and boys. For Albany Grade School, this meant basketball and track.

After several girls unsuccessfully (except for Lu Ann) joined the boys’ basketball team, I decided to voluntarily begin an early spring girls’ basketball team. As the coach, I found coaching girls to be a completely different experience from teaching them, but I will write more about that later.

What this did do was put me around the girls for more time every day. Since we lived in Albany we saw the girls a great deal. This caused them to get involved in the goings on in our lives, and they were quite excited about the coming baby.

Now back at that time, the dark ages of pregnancy, parents didn’t know what they were getting. There was the “ring test” , the “carrying high or low test” and “moody vs mellow” test”. These tests were fun, but not reliable. There were no ultrasound 3D photos and movies. There was no furnishing and painting the baby’s room before birth. More importantly, name selection involved both genders.

Our first child, Scott, was named Katie until he actually arrived. This second child also had some names, but I had not disclosed these to the gaggle of girls who were always super interested in the upcoming birth.

Never mind that I hadn’t disclosed our baby naming thoughts, the girls decided we were having a baby girl. Their suggestions can be viewed above. Of course, even though they were all sure the baby would be a girl, my students hedged their bet a little.

On May 21, looking very much like the Michelin man, our baby girl arrived. We were showered in baby gifts from the junior high girls, who were so excited that we had a girl of own. No, we did not name her Hilary.