The Eternal Adventure

I suppose everyone’s first adventure is that of being born. Think about it. One minute, safe and secure; the next minute, into the fray. It’s pretty impossible to top that for sheer theatrics, but through the ages, some of us keep trying—scaling a cliff face with bare hands, shooting over waterfalls in a barrel, trying to make pasta from scratch.

In recent months, I’ve had time to indulge memory and to recall several formative adventures—all the way back to age three.

My sister, Brenda, was still a baby in the cradle. My grandmother, Fannie, aka Mama, had been given two little granddaughters to raise and must have needed a break. And so, together with her friend, whose name or