I know you've always wondered, "what makes them special?" On dark, sleepless nights when the mind tends to mull over complex questions, that very thought has played around the edges of your consciousness: "what is the source of their uniqueness?" Waiting at red lights in the afternoon haze, your mind drifts to unsolved complexities, I’m sure you have pondered, "what has spawned their idiosyncratic talent?" I myself have devoted entire days to cogitate the boiled down essence of what makes Larry and I distinctive and exceptional. As if in a vision, the answer has floated up; it was so obvious I don't know how I missed it. We were both born with a silver spoon in our sweet, rosebud mouths. We arrived in privilege to households equipped with staff, rather like the Crawley Family of Downton Abbey. We played all day with abandon and then decided what we would like for dinner.
Wait, that was someone else and not us. Larry grew up on a dairy farm in rural Ohio, where work was the order of the day for all family members. By the time you were old enough to go to school, you had graduated to morning and evening barnyard chores. That wasn't just Monday through Friday; cows need milking twice a day, 365 days a year. A few years later, Larry, along with other siblings, was given the added responsibility of daily egg collection from the 7,000 layers in the chicken house. There were fields to plow, crops to plant, tend and then harvest. One of the more exotic jobs that Larry recalls, was being sent with siblings to a field to pick up rocks. This rivaled the hauling of cow manure in a wagon, behind a tractor, to fertilize some distant field.
There was no silver spoon or elevated status in this boy's youth; he learned how to work! As a teenager, Larry earned his own spending money by catching chickens for local poultry farms. Selected evenings, after the home chores were finished, he would join several other guys and work until midnight. Their glamorous job involved creeping into a smelly, squawking chicken house, catching 3-4 young birds in each hand, and carrying them to the waiting truck to be hauled off for processing. After several hours, they would be plastered with feathers, scratches and hen droppings, and would reek of the pneumonia smell associated with poultry collection. Oh, but it was so worth the $5 bill at the end of the job! And sometimes as an added bonus, the kind farmers' wives would prepare hot sloppy joe sandwiches for the laborers.
After Larry graduated from high school, he was required to work on the home farm until he was 20 years old. He was only paid $25 a month, but still managed to deposit most of that into his savings account. Rather than a silver spoon in his hand, it was a farm tool, most likely a shovel or a pitch fork.
There was a lack of privilege as well on my trek through childhood. Rural Ohio was my family’s home, though we were not farmers. My father was a mason contractor. His death, just before my fifth birthday, deprived our family of financial resources and left us leaderless. To help pay the bills, as soon as they were old enough, all the kids got summer jobs. I was first employed as a middle schooler; my older sister, Linda and I were bimonthly housecleaners for a local family. We would go after school to clean their house. Of course we were expected to help with our own housekeeping, cooking, dishwashing, laundry, yard work, and weed pulling in our large garden. After our mother's stroke and subsequent disability, we four remaining siblings at home supplied the income, ran the household, paid the bills, and cared for our mother. Even though we were mere teenagers, we morphed into adulthood at a rapid pace, sparked by the catalyst of responsibility. After high school, I worked as a bank teller, a waitress, and as a housekeeper.
We did the best we could in our leaderless home, but some things fell between the cracks. Being the youngest, I seemed to get the "bum" cars, the ones with issues. Perhaps no one thought to take them for regular oil changes or tune ups. I drove a yellow VW square back to my bank teller job in Alliance, Ohio. That cornbread shaped car went through a spell where you never knew if it would start. Many evenings after work, the security guard at the bank would push my car in the parking lot while I popped the clutch so that I could drive home. Another family car which I drove was a navy, Honda civic. Sadly that vehicle developed a backfiring habit. The logical course of action would appear to be a visit to a repair shop, but I guess that wasn’t in the cards. I kept driving that backsliding (oops backfiring) civic until one day, on my way to my housecleaning job, flames shot out the back and the car started on fire! This was one month before our wedding and Larry and I managed to share his car as we went to jobs and school.
There certainly was no silver spoon when it came to our wedding. I planned and paid for everything myself, with one exception: Larry's dad offered to purchase the ham for the ham and cheese sandwiches at the reception if we agreed to hold the wedding in Larry's home church rather than my home community; of course that is exactly what we did. I purchased the fabric for my wedding dress at a great splurge of $25, and sewed the Mennonite garment myself.
You can see that we were not born to privilege; there must be another reason Larry and I are extra ordinary. I am guessing that it was our stellar education. Our parents hotly debated the merits of Montessori vs. parochial vs. home school for our formative years. Nothing but the best for their budding Einsteins! We had college education funds that our parents set up when we were infants, assuring that the ivy leagues would be at our doorstep.
Wait, that wasn't us either. Larry was born a scholar. In my mind’s eye, I can picture that slim boy with dark glasses and a muscular brain. He always loved learning and determined as a child that education would be his ticket to some vocation other than farming. As did all the Schlabach kids, he attended the public school in their small village of Sugarcreek. Math and Science were his specialties. He would frequently walk to the end-of-the-year awards ceremony at the high school, collect his awards and honors, and then walk home. School was just school and parents were preoccupied with farm life and getting dinner on the table. (He is quite modest, and if given editing privileges, I feel certain that you will never see this.)
Larry qualified in his middle school spelling bee to move on to the county wide competition. Unfortunately, this event was held on a Wednesday evening; he was dropped off at the competitions by his parents on their way to Wednesday Prayer Meeting. In the county spelling bee, he was the last one from his middle school to go down. Spell a-s-s-i-d-u-o-u-s and s-e-d-u-l-o-u-s.
One Saturday when Larry was in eleventh grade, he asked his dad's permission to be gone for the day. With trepidation, he told his dad that he was scheduled to take the ACT (American College Testing). His dad’s reply was not encouraging: "why do you want that?! You’re not going to college!" When Larry reached 20 years of age, he plunged into college, first at Kent State University, and later, graduating from Malone College. He held many jobs during his collegiate days, to assure that he would graduate without student loans and debt: he was a mud boy on a mason crew, he installed carpet, and he also taught high school science at the small, Mennonite school affiliated with my church.
I attended my church's modest school; there were about one hundred kids in grades K-12. I loved school and good grades were always a priority for me. I managed to be Valedictorian of my senior class of eight. During our junior year, our class took the ACT. No one at my high school discussed the results with us, perhaps because college attendance was far from the norm for most of the graduates; most went on to do manual labor or learned a trade. I wanted to go to college so desperately that I could taste it, but given our dire family finances, we all were required to work until at least age 20, and use our earnings to keep the family afloat.
Two years later Larry and I were married. He had a two week old undergraduate degree in chemistry tucked away in his pocket. We moved to Florida for a year, where he taught high school and weighed the options of medical school or a PhD. And my dream was finally coming true: I was going to college! On registration day in late August, I drove myself to Manatee Junior College with my paperwork in hand, and stood, with racing heart, in the "S" line (for Schlabach). When it was my turn, I handed the college employee my high school transcripts and ACT results. She looked at them and then walked over to several other guidance counselors. I watched as they carried on a whispered conversation; I hoped that I hadn't done anything wrong. Then all three came back to the table, leaned forward with big smiles and said, "what can we do for YOU?!" Turns out I was sitting on a lovely ACT score, but I had no idea. It didn't matter anyway because I was going to college, even if it was only Manatee Junior College. I can truthfully say that Larry and I pursued our educations purely on our own drive, and not because of any familial or educators' encouragement.
I have toyed with you long enough; lean in and I will tell you the real reason why we are special. Larry and I are both child number seven, the biblical number of divine perfection! Listen; I hear strains of the hallelujah chorus and angels' wings beating. Number 7! Imagine! We had been dating for several months before this reality burst into our brains. It was destiny! You read about characteristics of first borns, middle children, or babies of the family, and what makes a good match up. Imagine two number sevens pairing up?! Double Perfection!
Now I have researched the stereotypes of birth order, and realize that first borns tend to be highly motivated achievers and perfectionists, middle children tend to be adaptable, peacemakers, and usually develop skills not shared by siblings, and we all know that babies of the family are spoiled, charmers, and tend to accept others doing things for them. Not finding any description of number seven children, I took creative license to write my own: they tend to be smart and intuitive in an ethereal sort of way, they have a beauty that is only enhanced with the passage of years, and they can smell a great wine a mile away. Cheers to all the perfect number seven children!
The reality is that no one really gives a rat's ass about child number seven (with the exception, of course, of my niece, Sarah Julian, and nephew, Joel Hershberger, who have had many rodents' tails given about them). I understand from the parental perspective; mom and dad are just so weary! It has all been done already, the first words and steps applauded many times, and you, child number seven, are just another one. Before you send out sad invitations to a pity party for us seventh children, remember that there is a bright spot to all this: the expectations are low. We get to create our own standard of excellence and decide how much effort we want to invest. We can often work under the radar, since no one is paying attention anyway. To be able to write your own script is quite freeing. And now if you wouldn't mind, please step a bit closer to the back of the stage; you are hogging my spot light.
