Josh’s yearbooks
Grade 7 1990
Grade 8 1991
Grade 9 1992
Grade 10 1993
Gale / Josh Bettinger, Smiths /
Gale / Gale Smith, Josh Bettinger, Smiths / cartoons /
Dueling cartoons
I was the first to stick this one on the refrigerator door. When I read it in the paper I thought it was the perfect cartoon to describe the mental state of my son at the age of 14 or 15 or any other teenager for that matter. I thought it was terribly funny. Josh wasn’t so amused.
Not long after another cartoon showed up on the refrigerator door — Josh’s rebuttal to mine. Josh was a night owl and I was a morning person so my perky demeanor first thing in the morning wasn’t one of his favorite things about me.
Not much I could say to that one…
Gale / Erik Smith, Gale Smith, Josh Bettinger, Smiths, Stacey Smith Gallo / Michigan, Ohio /
Josh wasn’t quite 1 and Erik was days short of being 2 when the blizzard hit in 1978. Stacey wasn’t going to be born until that April so that meant Sandi was pregnant at the time of the blizzard.
We were living out in the country and were snowed in with an 18 foot drift in front of our garage door. The wind had scooped the snow away from the house creating a literal bowl of snow around the house that was so high we couldn’t see out of the first floor windows. It took 4 days before a front load Caterpillar could get to us and dig us out. My only experience with “cabin fever” — the feeling of being held captive made you simply want to get out of the house.
Kind people who did not know us, but were aware there was an infant in the house called to see if we needed diapers or formula snow mobiled to us. I was breast feeding and using cloth diapers so I thanked them for their concern and told them we were good.
It was amazing, but we never lost power — I can’t imagine what we would have done if it would have gone out.
Gale / Gale Smith, Josh Bettinger / cartoon /
I’ve been going through all the things I saved when Josh was a baby and will be posting those as I get them scanned.
I found this cartoon I saved when Josh was only 3 months old because the truth of it struck me so deeply. Children look up at adults and think they are so lucky because they have all the answers, all the solutions to life’s problems when the reality is a whole different thing…
Gale / Gale Smith, Josh Bettinger / birth /
Take a look at the hospital bill. I was allowed to stay for 5 days and it cost a total of $1,622.90. That’s as amazing as the bill my mom kept from my birth compared to today’s standards.
[wpdm_file id=23]Gale / Gale Smith / high school /
Another post just for me. I threw out the yearbook so this is my only copy of the photos and signatures in it.