Welcome to the World, Rowan!

Written on 4-10–25.

        I am sitting across from my son at his dining table.  My son welcomed his son to the world on April 7th, so we are visiting and helping.  Rowan James Swope was born on April 7th at 4:56 PM.  What stood out to me was the time.  I remember Dad’s death occurring at 12:34, so Rowan just picked up on that and continued it.  It’s weird how numbers work out at times.  

Belinda and I are grandparents now, and we have met Rowan face to face.  His name is pronounced...

/row en/, like ‘I was “rowin’” a boat.’   It comes from the Rowan tree, a Eurasian tree that has red berries.  I just looked up what it meant on Wikipedia, and I love the Welsh translation/meaning out of multiple meanings.  I will just copy it here…  

The tree has two names in Welsh, cerdinen and criafol. Criafol may be translated as "The Lamenting Fruit", likely derived from the Welsh tradition that the Cross of Christ was carved from the wood of this tree, and the subsequent association of the Rowan's red fruit with the blood of Christ.

That is beautiful, especially because Palm Sunday is this weekend.  

We came here after work on the day he was born.  We heard the news that he was delivered when we were in the new Allsup’s in Cuba that I had written about before.  Shannon told Belinda what had happened.  He swiveled his head upwards (not good), so they called a Code Pink, baby in danger.  Suddenly, the room was filled with nurses and other helpers, and their nurse, Heidi, actually got onto the bed to straddle Casey to start to push on her stomach.  James caught a glimpse of Rowan’s head when it twisted upward.  One shoulder got caught and started to pinch the umbilical cord, Belinda said.  

All’s well that ends well, however.  He was delivered with no problems after that, and Belinda and I were able to hold him all swaddled a few hours later.  It’s surreal.  Belinda and I held our first grand baby for the first time.  He is healthy and handsome, and Mom and Dad are doing well.  They looked a bit shocked (okay, mostly Casey, but who could blame her for that), as most parents do, but they will all be okay.

Back to the desert storm we had over spring break after eating lunch in Silver City.  Danielle continued on her way back to Albuquerque, and the parents headed back to the City of Rocks Campground.  We got stopped by state patrol and NMDoT employees who told us (after nearly an hour of waiting in our Grand Cherokee) that the road would be closed until sundown.  That was nearly four hours away.  

Right after we were stopped, I left the vehicle to go ask what was going on.  We were back about a dozen trucks, rigs, and cars, so it was a bit of a walk, but I was honked back after I was only a few cars away.  They told me that they had heard the highway was closed due to high winds and dust, which we could see from the Jeep.  

If I hadn’t tried again an hour later, we would have been there all day.  The NMDoT guys told me, however, that we could head back towards Silver City and basically make a loop to get back to our campground in about an hour, so that is what we did.  It was quite the adventure, but we were glad to get back to the campground and enjoy some cozy time in our camper while the wind swirled around us outside.

On to golf…

I played with Herman (not his real name) again at Pinon Hills after our trip down south on Friday.  Eric had company, so he chose not to join us.  We were joined by Phil, and Herman told me on the first tee that he was a scratch golfer.  He would want to play from the blues, so I joined them.  I played respectably.  I had three pars on the front and two on the back, but I scored better on the back nine due to getting more bogeys and having fewer blow-up holes.  It was also windy in the Four Corners area, so we dealt with that challenge, too.  

My best par came on the par four #5, the one with the canyon.  Our tee shots were stretched out across the fairway.  Phil’s was closer with a little over 100 yards to the green.  Herman was around the 150 yard marker, and mine was around 175 yards away.  You could draw a straight, diagonal line through our golf balls with mine being the farthest point on the right side of the fairway.  

Since I was away, I went first, of course.  I chose my 5-iron and swung a beauty!  My golf ball faded through the air heading directly towards the middle of the green.  It landed and rolled back slightly to a spot above the hole.  I looked ahead to Phil who was given me the thumbs up sign.  I felt I earned some respect from him for that shot.  Then they floundered.

Herman duffed one into the canyon.  Phil did no better, with his ball landing short of the grass and landing in a Yucca plant.  I don’t think either one finished with a legal score, so I felt really positive after getting that score.  Maybe I should challenge myself to play from the blues more often.

On another note, I wanted to figure out how badly I had beaten Eric in stroke play after we played our warm-up holes at Rio Mimbres.  I found out I had outscored him by five strokes, 72 to 77.  I just wanted to do that to make me feel better, since I knew I had turned it on after getting my warm-up in.  That makes sense, since he had beaten me by only one stroke with our total scores.  

Tomorrow, I will play with Troy at UNM North.  I look forward to that, and that is what I will write about next.