Tall Tale

If I were going to write the story of my birth, I would probably put in something momentous and poetic.  Something like the following scene.

     "Did you see that," she asked my father.
     "See what."
     "That star. Sirius. It flashed for a second."
     "Right, Nancie. Whatever you say." Dad was humoring her.  They had already lost a child in a premature birth.  And though everything seemed to be fine this time, he was naturally cautious and far more concerned with loading everything into the car to take to the hospital than with his wife's imagination.
     "No, really Nelson," she insisted! "I think that the Dog Star winked at me!"
     On the drive to to hospital, she talked about dogs.  She talked about the dog and cat that she and her brothers had owned as a child and how the cat had defended the dog from another dog.  She talked about the fact that the Chinese New Year was coming soon and that it was going to be the Year of the Dog. She talked about loyalty and friendship and that she hoped their child would be like a dog in those ways.
     During the labor, she had the doctor open the drapes of the hospital window.  She hoped to see Sirius.  Light pollution and an overcast sky made that unlikely, but she remained hopeful.  
     I have been told that the labor was relatively short, but intense.  I do not know.  I was not exactly the best witness to the event and I certainly have no memory of that.  I know that these were the days before fathers were in the room for the birth, so he waited outside in the Waiting Room.  So I have no one to confirm or deny what Mom has told me.  She says that as the doctors pulled me out, the clouds parted.  Orion, Canis Major, and Canis Minor all shone through the window.  She says that Sirius seemed alive that night, and that it's light shone right on me.  She says that I opened my eyes, and reached for that star ... until the doctor smacked my bum and made me scream.


     To my knowledge, none of those things are true.  Let me re-phrase that.  This story was never told to me.  My mother does love astronomy and would recognize the above constellations and stars.  They are all visible in early January. My father would react like that to Mom's silliness.  I was born in Dayton, OH. Light pollution could have made viewing those stars difficult.  I was born at the end of the Chinese year of the rooster and just before the year of the dog.
     So, this story contains many facts, but to my knowledge, the actual events did not happen.  But the personalities are correct.  And I can easily imagine it happening.
     I have been told that I am very nearly a tall tale, like Davy Crockett, Johnny Appleseed, Mike Fink, or John Henry.  Things like that would fit in quite well with the weird stuff that really happened to me.  Like being mugged by mimes.  Or meeting Elvis in a blizzard outside of Memphis.  So I think that I shall choose to believe that it is true, although not factual.