Water Resources People and Issues
and it's a lot easier than walking down. So she enjoyed the mountains, but not
so much the cliff climbing. When I came back to Washington and took up cliff
climbing, or rock climbing as we called it, along the Potomac Gorge, she went
out a few times and demonstrated that she could do it, but she had gotten a job
as a children's librarian in the District of Columbia Public Library and so she
gave up climbing. She never took up caving when I did. Caving came to me
naturally because the climbers were exploring some of the difficult caves which
required the use of climbing techniques. It was a lot cooler in the summer
climbing underground than in the open, and that's what got me started.
My life was very much organized to keep some quality of life by spending as
much time as I could in the outdoors. We did a lot of camping on weekends
and on summer vacations in New England and eastern Canada. Kay eventually
went to work for the Navy Department Library. She was working there when
our first child was born, and she loved it so much that she really intended to
go back to work.
Q: When was your
child born?
A: In
Q: What was her name?
A; Her name is Mary Jane. We fully expected her to be a boy because she was
large and active in the womb. We were going to name her Clifford William
after a very good friend and my father's. The doctor was positive she was
going to be a boy because Kay is small, feet 2 inches tall and her normal
weight is about 105, and the doctor said, "You're going to have a boy. I can
tell by the vigorous way that he is kicking." On the way to the hospital Kay
says, "Maybe it will be a girl. What will we call it?" And I said, "Well, I
don't know, how about Mary Ann or Mary Jane, just a good old-fashioned
name, and then I said, "No, I wouldn't want to call her Mary Ann because
we had a cow named Mary Ann on the farm." (Laughter)
So Mary Jane it is. And Mary Jane is just as wonderful as her mother. I guess
everybody feels that their children are wonderful and she certainly is.
What does she do now?
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