It’s Time to Count My Blessings
By Tim O’Hara
In case I haven’t mentioned it before, I consider myself blessed in many ways. For starters, I was blessed with having been born into a large and loving family. I was one of eight children—fifth in birth order—so you know I tend to be a calm, well-balanced person. My father was the oldest of 10 children; therefore he was the authority figure and ruled his siblings. My father’s brothers and sisters also averaged eight children per family, which made my dad the leader of a very large pack.
My grandfather sold his upstate New York dairy farm a dozen years before my birth and moved the entire clan to south Florida where I grew up surrounded by hundreds of cousins. Early on, I learned to answer, “yes” automatically whenever I heard someone ask, “Hey, you’re one of those O’Hara kids, aren’t you?”
This is a roundabout way of telling you that my birthday is July 31st and it’s always been a big deal for me. Why? Because I don’t have to share it with anyone else in the family. My birthday belongs to me and only me. Readers who come from large families know about sharing everything except birthdays.
Although it might seem as though the topic of my most important day of the year has absolutely nothing to do with credit unions, I’m pretty sure I can tie credit unions into the theme. Don’t forget, the subject of my birthday came up because I mentioned that I’m blessed in many ways.
