a little insight into my character via a quick email my sister sent to my daughter, Bella this morning:
“bella, did i ever tell you that story about how your ‘civilian’ mother could do push-ups?
i was just thinking about it and it made me think it would be great if jeannie moved out here but i guess you wouldn’t like that that much since then she would be so far away from you.
anyway, the story is funny and it goes like this.
it must have been 1988 or 1989… and you know how your mom always wants to be able to do anything anyone else can do? like when she heard that i had learned to knit when i was living in germany she learned to knit too… before i came back home! anyhoo, so i was in the air force ROTC and was in the process of joining this military fraternity (kind of like rushing only different since you have to do things like get up at 5:30am to run 10 miles and do 100 push-ups in the snow, etc) and jeannie had come out to visit me in colorado… well, it was just before spring break ( i guess that also means it was 1989, not 1988) and we had this one activity where we had to find out the answer to all these questions for the ‘actives’ (the ones who were already members of the military fraternity which was called pershing rifles). one way to get an answer was to directly ask one of the actives but this usually meant you had to do something for them… this one guy (already a member) we asked was like, “i’ll tell you the answer to that if your civilian sister can do TEN push-ups for me right now”… haha… it was so funny because jeannie had been practising her push-ups ever since i had told her i was doing so many in order to join this fraternity!! he was so surprised when she dropped and gave him 10 proper push-ups… it was great. maybe it doesn’t sound so funny now because i haven’t explained the context that well but trust me, it was a GREAT moment. your mom is so funny sometimes.
okay, back to work… keep safe in college… xox, sue.”