Backwoods Blog

BIRTH CERTIFICATE

The Isolation Blues;

reflections during covid-19

My Father George Hutchinson was born on December 13, 1909 at the family homestead located on the Nichols Road in Monticello. As the story goes, by the time the medical doctor from Bridgewater arrived to document the birth it was already January. On the birth certificate the doctor mistakenly wrote December 13, 1910 instead of 1909 (probably since he had been writing the new date for several weeks). For as long as I can remember my Father always used the 1910 date for his birthdate and that was the date he used to calculate his current age. Then one day his sister Vera visited him and as they were talking about how old the two of them were (both in their nineties at the time) she said, “You DO remember that you are one year older than what your birth certificate says, right?” There was a long pause and everyone just looked at each other. This was the first time I had ever heard anything about it! My Dad had actually forgot. He had been using the incorrect date on his birth certificate for so long that he had fooled himself into thinking it was correct. We all stood there and watched my Dad age one year in less than a minute. And I think he was okay with that because by then he was already bragging about his age and what an old codger he had become.

My father was ninety five (plus) when he died in 2005. His memory was not good near the end and he suffered dementia for several years but he never lost his wit or sense of humor. He was the third of nine children born to George and Mae Hutchinson when families in The County were large and times often hard. When I heard my father talk about his siblings and the stories of life growing up on the family farm on a back road in a small rural town it sometimes reminded me of an episode of The Waltons on CBS. Dad’s older brother Charlie, was our best shot at a Hutchinson making it to one hundred years of age. Uncle Charlie died when he was ninety nine, ten months short of the century mark. When I wake up in the morning my sixty-year-old body marvels at the longevity of some in the family genealogy. I’m just hoping to make a decent run at a respectable number and see how close I can get. For now, one more day of it and then the next…

Here’s to us all.

In the woods,

 
Dave

April 27, 2021