August, 2009

image source: http://www.sarmonster.netStory by Duane K. Troxel

The year was 1976, my first and last bicentennial issue. Our (it turns out) last child was born in September of that year and my wife said, “That’s it!” (Leroy, if you’re reading this your Mom didn’t mean “it” in a pejorative - this-kid-is-the-last-straw sense - but in an I’m-not-going-to-experience-the-miracle-of-birth-anymore sense.)

I quietly suggested she might get her tubes tied but she remarked that up ‘til now she’d walked alone on the wild side of the reproductive region. It was my turn to take a trip. “You’re going to get a vasectomy! That’s all there is to it.”