Category Archives: Uncategorized

Packing Day Again

Wow, how did this happen? Another month gone already? But I’m not quite ready to move on. Still have to cover so many things: Mmmmmm… I missed a month of school in sixth grade. I don’t remember how I got pneumonia, but I do remember nearly coughing up a lung every morning until I wasContinue Reading

Mugged

This happened one afternoon when I was in 7th grade. No names have been changed to protect the innocent. I never learned their names anyway. That afternoon, like most, I walked the last few blocks toward home by myself after parting ways with friends. My shoulder purse swung against my hip as I walked; myContinue Reading

I Want to Hold Your Hand

Oh, that first boyfriend… He lived up the block from me. We sat near each other in most of our classes in junior high. My last name started with an E and his started with an F. The alphabet brought us together initially, but then we found ourselves under the influence of inner urges neitherContinue Reading

JFK: January 20, 1961

Fifty years ago yesterday.

BFFs and Mean Girls, Part 1

The symbol for enchantment and love at first sight! My best friend. Sort of. I was her wing man, her less-pulled together wisecracking sidekick. She had it all: good looks– like a young Cybill Shepherd –a doting mother, baton lessons, an array of new dresses for school every September, and oh yes, boys eating outContinue Reading

Last Minute Packing

This is like the part where you just start throwing stuff into boxes marked “Miscellaneous” right before the movers show up. It’s the 14th of January, and by my own arbitrary rule, this is the day I move on to the next five year span. But I left a bunch of stuff out! I’m notContinue Reading

Period Piece

No, this isn’t going to be about punctuation.  Nor does it have anything to do with history. Yeah, right It’s about that other kind of period. The one that I was so excited about before it started. The one I couldn’t wait to get. I was practically hopping up and down, waiting for this undeniableContinue Reading

First Date

His name was Chip, as in “off the old block.”  Black hair, dark eyes, a real cutie.If he had a real name, I don’t remember it. But he was the rabbi’s son and he asked me to go to the movies with him. I asked my mom and she talked to his mom (what wereContinue Reading

Remembrance of Chips Past

Go ahead and inhale Proust had his madeleine, and I have Fritos. Just the smell of these addictive, crunchy corn chips takes me back to my friend Karen’s house, the place I first tasted tuna that wasn’t tricked out with stuff that was good for you.At my house, the tuna had special additives–celery, radishes, maybeContinue Reading

Westward Ho!

The old clunker Just like Dinah said! We drove back east in our battleship gray Plymouth Cranbrook, but on the way back to California, after our year in New York, we stopped in Detroit and bought a new car! A red station wagon. We saw the USA in a Chevrolet! It was really this red.Continue Reading