Dave Humsey

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Dave Humsey

Dave and Jay at the end of 1982. [22 kb]

Would you like to send Dave an ?

This Polaroid print came to me at the beginning of 1983, probably along with a thank-you letter from Winibee for whatever I sent her for Christmas. (I know what she sent me -- a calendar towel and one of her incomparable fruitcakes.) The crown of roses on the hog Dave is wearing on his chest (grinning happily to show just how much he really does enjoy it) are a carry-over from the year before, when Iowa was crazy with Rose Bowl fever. It was the Hawkeyes' first trip there in 23 years.
I didn't care about it one way or the other. But (not meaning to revolt you with my sexual preferences) I did think that pig with the crown of roses looked pretty cute.

Lois flew east to meet me in September 1994 and we stayed with Dave and Carrie for four nights while sightseeing around Boston. When Dave took us out for brunch Lois thought she ought to get a record of it.
A little too heavy on the flash. And I look as though I'm wearing lipstick.
(In Santa Cruz a couple of years earlier a woman who'd just met me confessed that she'd been staring at me all evening wondering if I was wearing lipstick. NO. I DON'T WEAR LIPSTICK!!!)

Dave and Tom. [14 kb]

During our visit Lois and I also got to meet Jack -- John David James Humsey, to be formal (as one has a hard time being, around Jack).
When we met him Jack was thirteen months old. According to my extensive file of Humseyana he was born August 18, 1993, in Tyler, Texas, and arrived in Somerville on October 9, 1993.

Shortly after I moved back to Berkeley after six months in Virginia ("I'm glad to hear that you got out of Jesus country," Dave wrote me, "and back to the land of Telegraph Avenue"), Carrie and Dave flew out to San Francisco with Jack. While Carrie was busy in the city ("spending some quiet moments with 20,000 other librarians," as Dave put it), Dave and Jack met me in Berkeley and we walked through the UC campus together. Jack made friends with everybody.

Jack and Desi on bikes. [34 kb]
Don't you wish you were so overflowing with self-confidence?
It was a Sunday afternoon, so the conga drummers were out in force on lower Sproul Plaza -- just as they were on Sunday afternoons thirty years ago when Maureen and I lived in Berkeley. Jack loved the drumming, and made good use of his dance training to boogie down to the music.
As usual, he was a hit with everyone. But one pissed-off-looking african-american man asked Dave, "What's he doing with you, man?"
"We adopted him," Dave -- affable and unflappable as always -- replied.
The man shook his head and looked as though he had just swallowed a mouthful of ... um ... well, something distasteful.
Dave thought maybe he had assumed we were a homosexual couple. I was wearing a pink shirt, and did look pretty cute. But I think it was probably just Berkeley political correctness kicking in: Brown-skinned babies must only be adopted by brown-skinned parents!

Not long after Dave and Carrie and Jack returned to Somerville, another baby came down the Adoption Superhighway, at a time when Dave and Carrie had no plans for another, though Jack was lobbying hard. He insisted that they needed to get a baby sister for him to play with, one whose name would be Daisy.
As it turned out, Jack's intuitions were correct. The new baby, born on August 9, 1997, was named Desirée -- which Jack quickly shortened to Desi.

Desi in helmet. [10 kb]

Desi. [9 kb]

Desi at breakfast. [8 kb]

In June 1999 Lois and I visited Dave and Carrie in Somerville as we had five years before, but this time were pressed for time and were able to stay only a single night.

Jack insisted that I take his photo. He grimaced mightily, but since I wasn't using a flash the shutter slowed way down, and the result was shaky.
Then Jack insisted on taking my photo, and I humored him, thinking I could afford to waste one shot. But the one he took of me was terrific! Me. [2 kb]

From Dave and Carrie's Christmas letter in 1998:

This year has been full of surprises and wonders. Jack (now a mature five years old, and sporting his first pair of horn rims) has announced that he's all grown up now. He loves having a baby sister, although he periodically says to Desiree "You are so messy and silly." She simply smiles at him, hero-worship continuing to shine from her large luminous eyes. Her first word, of course, was "Ack" (Jack!). Fortunately, however, she does not allow him to get the better of her, and has learned to give as good as she gets.

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