A Baby Book and Deja Vu

You know how you feel when you know something "neat" is about to happen or something kind of unique...  Today something like that happened.  My daughter, Tafta, attended a birthday party out of town.  On her way back into town, Shreveport, she passed an estate sale.  Riding with her was the greatest five year old shopper, Audrey Jane.  She asked her if she'd like to stop at the estate sale.  The word A. J. clued in on was "sale".  Of course she said, "Oh yes.  Those are my favorite things ever."  Tafta called me after they had loaded her car with their loot.  She had only bought a few things, something Audrey had picked out, a prize for me and her mother-in-law and a few pieces of jewelry for herself.  But something had caught her interest and she had left it on the table.  Something she thought I might be interested in so she was calling to see if I wanted her to go back in and make the purchase.  It was the woman's Baby Book.  I said, "Oh my, why would they (children or heirs) be selling their mother's or grandmother's Baby Book.  Of course I want it."  Tafta proceeded to inform me that it was beautiful and she thought the woman had been born in the late 1920's or 30's, but the estate salesperson had told her when she inquired about the book, "Well, you know you can't keep everything."    Really?  It's not like keeping your mother's baby book makes you a full fledged hoarder.  I told Tafta to please go back in there and get me that Baby Book.  Tafta had me on the phone as she re-entered the estate.  She was talking all the way to the book table.  She read several other titles as she's looking.  Then says, "Oh Mama, it's not here.  I guess someone else picked it up.  It was beautiful."  I was just about to get disappointed when the "estate lady" asked, "Are you looking for this?"  as she held up the book.  Evidently she had heard Tafta's part of the conversation and had picked up the book and taken it to the sales table for her...um...I call it destiny...fate. 

A little later Tafta calls me back, she's sitting at a red light reading the book.  She fills me in on the lady's first words, pictures, all kinds of things, then she says, "Oh Mama, here's her birth announcement.  July 11, 1927."  I asked her to read that again.  She did, then said, "Oh my, that's your birthday July 11!"  Yes it is except I was born in 1957.  But you know what is also neat, my daddy Frank Murphy, Sr. was born two days after that delightful lady, July 13, 1927.  I don't know if the family really meant to sell their mother's or grandmother's Baby Book but it landed in the hands of a lady that shares the same day, thirty years later, daughter of a man born two days later.  What a wonderful piece of history...I will take care of it for the rest of my journey anyway...

Thanks Tafta and A. J. for enriching the ride just a little bit more...