CHALLENGE ACCEPTED …

 My Canadian blogger friend AC has presented me with a challenge. After my recent series of “Memories from the ER” he wondered what my next series of memories might be. You would certainly think that to be an easy question since I've lived more than 88 years and should have a lot to share, but the problem is that I've been blogging since 2006 and there's little that I haven't already written about.

However I like the idea, AC, and have decided that I am going to attempt it. I will start it here with a brief overview of my background and then follow it every 6^th day with a chronological look at the events that have shaped my life. 

I was the youngest of 5 girls, born in 1933 in Plainfield, NJ. My mother was from Brattleboro, Vt. and a retired art teacher. Dad was a production manager in an advertising agency in NY City, and all of us were living in Plainfield where he grew up. (My mother sketched this picture of me while she was still in the hospital after the birth.)

I didn't realize it as a child but I was extremely lucky to have been born into a warm and loving family. It was at the height of the Depression and less than a month after I was born FDR became president ! That was the start of an amazing journey for our country and for my family. We weren't paupers but we had to scrimp to make things work and FDR's weekly “fireside chats” (which the family listened to on our big old wooden radio) were comforting. No wonder that I've been a lifetime Democrat …

So that's my background and my series will start with memories of our move to Wellesley, Mass. when I was nine.