Paul Stanton Anderson
September 12, 1970
11:05 PM
5 lbs 15 3/4 oz
19 1/2 inches long
1. PSA was born on a Saturday evening. His sister, Rachel hoped for a girl, she wanted to name him Rena Bena. He was named after his grandfathers; Lloyd Paul and Stanley Kenneth. There is a long standing discussion on how he came to be known as Bud.
2. He became known as Bud, or in the case of his one grandmother, "Buddy".
3. His first word was MORE.
4. He was, and still is peripheral motion. The other grandmother called him a "busy guy"
5. On his second birthday, we went to Rachel's grade school to have one of those school picture head shots taken. The principal, Helen Norwood, saw us come in the door by the gym. She said hi to him and asked him how old he was, he said, (putting up two fingers), "I am two, I am twoTODAY!" She said, "Oh, he is a quick one!"
6. He announced at four that he wanted to ride a bike. Those of us who have children know the average age is seven and it takes two weeks. We found a bike suitable for his 'no taller than a fire hydrant size' and in eleven days he was mobile.
7. He had some breathing problems early. I told him to stand on his head in the morning to drain the mucous out. When he would get up in the morning, he would stand on his head in front of the television and watch cartoons. The TV was in a bookcase, he balanced himself on the bookcase until he got the hang of it.
8. He became proficient in moving from the bookcase to the sofa on his head. Yes, he 'walked on his head'.
When he took tumbling class he could already stand on his head and shared his walking skills with the class. The instructor tried to change his method of doing head stands. Heavy on the tried.
9. He went to school with me when I was volunteering in the class rooms. Helen Norwood took a shine to him and offered to drop the 2 from the 12 and make him a kindergarten a year earlier. I did not agree.
10. Instead of public school, he went to nursery school five times a week. His instructors, Mindy and Bob, said he had high social skills. We all know that Bud means friend. He gained the friendship of his peers and his teachers.
11. His long time neighborhood friend was Kevin. Among other things, they liked to sit on the curb and count cars which drove down 21st Street.
12. He learned to count money sitting in Dr. Boyden's office waiting for his allergy shot.
13. Bud went to afternoon kindergarten. I worked play ground duty; Bud would come with me and eat lunch with Mr. Mead, the gym teacher, and then play with the others before school.
14. We camped on vacations in those days. When his dad took him to the bathroom in a camp ground, Bud saw feet in the next stall. He thought it was a female. He stated, "I don't want that lady sitting next to me!" The story is that the feet shuffled.
15. Another holiday away from Lawrence, we were walking to a site of a replica of a fort. Bud was ahead of us and stopped to rest. He didn't like places that had a lot of trees, it made him feel confined. He stated his energy was gone. And then, he said, "I know, I will pressed my go button!" He pressed his belly button and took off like a rocket. When we caught up, he asked us what took us so long.
16. When he started first grade, he tested to fourth grade reading level. Because they didn't know what to do with him, he sat in class and didn't have reading at all until I saw him by himself one day.
17. His teacher, in second grade, said he liked to get done with his work and hang out with his buddies. She didn't think to have him help others who didn't learn as quickly, although she had assigned a special project for his sister a few years earlier.
18. He came to every practice of the softball team his sister was in. We had a softball with a rope threw it. I would swing it over my head about 10 feet out. Each girl would be given a turn until she missed. Bud had the longest turn.
19. He started playing little league baseball just out of first grade. His coach called him a vacuum cleaner. He was the youngest on the team yet played every inning except the inning he took a hard hop in the neck. He always played in field.
20. To help him be prime, he would wake me early in the morning to throw balls. For everyone he caught, he got a penny. He always had enough to get an Icee.
21. We were on vacation in Illinois. Bud kept saying he had to go to the bathroom. Because he was a male, it was suggested he use a MacDonald's cup. When he finished, Rachel said, "Boy, Bud, you peed thirty five cents worth!"
22. By now, his legs were long enough to straddle the walls in the hallway at the house. He would literally climb the walls.
23. He was late for supper one night in the fall. When he did come home, he had a broken collar bone from playing football. His bike tire was flat but he rode it home anyway.
23. He was in a harness for three months. When the doctor declared him healed, he took the harness and tore it in two in the doctor's office.
24. He nearly always represented Luke Skywalker on Halloween.
25. He and his friend Matt went to LaMans video arcade right after Christmas. They left their bikes in the front rather than putting them in the bike rack. Because Matt wasn't supposed to be there, they made up a story about a black guy stealing their bikes at K Mart. The police called the house to tell us the building manager at LaMans had put the bikes away. Bud fessed up and what prompted on what to say to the manager. He got his bike back and promised to rack it after that. Matt and his mother went to get Matt's bike but the mother made an error of taking her bike into the center, leaving melting snow on the floor.
26. Bud and his sister were responsible to clean the family room on Sunday mornings. After they finished, they got their allowance. Bud expected Rachel to keep him from spending all his at the arcade. He was generally broke by noon. Once he was even willing to run around the block in a lizard costume for a dollar.
27. Bud loved the Dallas Cowboys. He had a Dallas Cowboy shirt. It was made with a yoke and the body of the shirt was that fabric with the little holes in it. The shirt got too small. We cut the bottom part of it in vertical pieces and pulled on the fabric to make it roll against itself, knotting the bottom. We called it his 'swing shirt'. He had a friend named Trevor, who wanted a shirt like that, so the two of the cut Trevor's shirt up. His parents were NOT happy.
28. Bud was always warm. He moved around too much to ever be cold. The grade school had a rule regarding jackets if the temperature was a certain degree. He called me one lunch hour to say they wouldn't let him go out because he didn't have a jacket. I brought a jacket, boots, and mittens to school, although I felt a sixth grader in a sweatshirt should be able to make his own judgment call.
The next day, he wore as many jackets as he could put on over one another and announced, "IF ANYONE FORGOT A JACKET, I HAVE EXTRAS". The teacher was not pleased. Everyone else thought it was funny.
29. Bud caught a catfish in Clinton Lake. He wanted to keep it. He took it home and then decided he should release it. They drove to the Wakarusa River and let it go. It had been out of the water about an hour.
30. Bud had a paper route. At first, he tossed them off his bike. Later he would ride Mopeds. He had two; one was yellow and the other was black. He called the black one his cow.
31. Rachel and Bud had a snack pack route. Their father had built it up and gave it to them. The had business cards. They called it the LA Snack Pack. LA stood for Lawrence Area. Rachel was the business manager and Bud was the salesman. It was based on the honor system. That is, if a person took something out of the pack, they needed to put money in the jar. Honor system generally means not paying. It is my impression that when they went to a place to restock, Bud would walk around with the jar and get the money owed.
32. He and his friend Mike were always riding somewhere. One summer, in a fair like atmosphere near the Kaw River, Mike, Peter, and Bud had come to enjoy the happenings on their Mopeds. Someone had Peter's keys in his pocket and climbed out on a limb for some boyish reason and the keys fell into the river. With Peter in the middle of the threesome, Mike pulled and Bud pushed as they rode single file back to Peter's house.
33. Bud always took the early morning class which started at 7:30, although he didn't wake up until about 10 o'clock. I asked him why he did that. He said that was the only way to get a parking spot.
34. We all know that running for class officers in high school is a major thing. Bud and his friends decided they should write him in. I made posters for him and danged if he didn't get co-vice president. The fun for him was the running; the office position was boring.
35. What was it about him and music teachers in grade school? One teacher, Mr. Lankford, gave Bud a minus. When I gathered up all of his school papers recently, I remembered going to school and talking to Helen about it. If Bud looks closely, he will see the - was removed. Lankford sweat a lot and was always looking at his watch. Another music teacher, Miss Sanford, got purple cookies named after her. If I made purple cookies and Rachel and Bud were here, they would say, "SANFORD COOKIES!"
36. He was in chorus when he was in high school. He had some great roles in the musicals. One year, he was really sick and couldn't sing. He played the part and someone sang back stage. Although he never made the elite group in high school; his profession is singing and booking groups.
37. Bud lives in California. He is engaged and will be married on October 13.
And that is 37 facts on his 37th birthday. Happy Birthday, Bud!
