The mythologies of the world are full of stories of infants born under auspicious circumstances. Comets and volcanic eruptions heralded the births of great warriors. In other stories, children born under a specific phase of the moon or during the alignment of the planets were destined for great things. So what does it mean if you were born underneath the glow of the Flat Creek sign?

Meet Jack Berezay. Today, he’s a lively, sports-loving ten-year-old boy who lives in Jackson with his family. He has the distinction of being the only person (that we know of, at least) who was born at Flat Creek Inn. 

Let’s start at the beginning. Jack’s parents, JR and Julie Barazay, were married in 1997. By 2007, they were living north of Jackson and had two boys, six-year-old Spencer and three-year-old Henry, when Julie became pregnant with her third child. In the cold, early hours of the morning of May 4, 2007, Julie felt the telltale pangs of labor. She and JR got into the car and made for the hospital, but it was not to be. The fates, perhaps eager to provide Flat Creek with blog post material, ordained a more unique place for little Jack’s entry into the world. 

Julie told JR to pull over; that baby was coming right there. JR, who was understandably reluctant to deliver his son in a dark parking lot on the edge of town, thought she was joking, but the inevitability of the situation soon dawned on him. He yelled to a nearby construction worker to run into the store and call an ambulance. Upon leaving the house, they had called 911 and announced they would be speeding to the hospital. But neither the police nor the ambulance got there before little Jack Berezay took his first breath in the back of a Chevy Tahoe. It was 6:45 am, and the temperature was a freezing 23 degrees Fahrenheit. 

When the ambulance came, paramedics cut Jack’s cord and they all climbed inside to get warm and sped to the hospital. The family still comes by every year for a picture underneath the Flat Creek sign to commemorate Jack’s unconventional birth. 

We’ve yet to see if the circumstances of his birth are some kind of omen for the way his life is going to turn out, but so far it seems like being born at Flat Creek means Jack is going to live a full life. At the very least, he gets 15 percent off at the Flat Creek convenience store, so that’s something. 

[caption id="attachment_1298" align="aligncenter" width="360"] Here's Jack at 2.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_1297" align="aligncenter" width="360"] Here he is at 3 or 4 (that slightly curved index finger leaves things a bit ambiguous).[/caption] [caption id="attachment_1299" align="aligncenter" width="360"] And here he is at 8.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_1300" align="aligncenter" width="360"] Here's Jack at 9. You can see on his face concern that in a year or two he'll run out of fingers.[/caption]