On the Cusp: a Jewish Girl’s Very, Very, Very Long Journey to Jesus

By Shai Blumberg

On the Cusp is a combination of the author’s testimony and memoirs, leading the reader through her innocence in the sixties and seventies, the tumultuous eighties and nineties, and the turning towards Jesus Christ (Yeshua) as Lord and Savior in the new century of the two thousands. There is an undercurrent of love and acceptance portraying an undeniable part of the Lord’s patience and grace throughout the work, combined with His just nature.

Growing up Jewish in the sixties and seventies in the shadow of J.F. State Park off Bond Boulevard in Southern California, there is a horsey element to the book as well, including Shai’s’s behind the scenes life as a polo girl, her aspirations to show jump, and the privilege of having a beautiful off the track Thoroughbred in her suburban backyard. Also reflected here are the struggles of growing up Jewish in a decidedly non-Jewish world.

When Grandma Lizzie tells Shai about Jesus as a six year old, the seed is planted despite Shai’s mother covering Shai’s’s ears and begging Grandma Lizzie to stop. Later, as an unhappy thirteen year old, Shai tries to connect with God on Christmas day, galloping her horse to Heaven's Point with Grandma Lizzy’s New Testament tucked in her new saddlebags. But nothing special happens and Shai is left to navigate murky waters of adolescence and a chaotic adult life without any tangible connection with God for decades to come.

On the Cusp portrays God’s mercy, patience and great love for even the most foolish of us. So enjoy the nostalgia, fallenness and ample human error of it all, and bask in God’s Amazing Grace, never forgetting that being on the cusp of Greatness, His Greatness, is an opportunity the Lord offers to everyone. Even the seemingly most hopeless of us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9798823006927

Shai Blumberg

Shai Blumberg grew up in Southern California in the sixties and seventies, exercising polo ponies and jumping her thoroughbred, Nevada. She graduated high school in 1977 and went on to college, studying on and off through her twenties until she received a bachelors in screenplay writing at a university in Los Angeles and later another one in English at a local state university. After subbing in the city, teaching ESL at night and singing in various rock bands up and down the Club Strip, Shai moved to the mountains and taught creative writing, interpersonal communication and poetry writing at a community college there. She received her masters in Speech Communication at a university in Nevada. Upon returning to Los Angeles in her thirties, she taught Special Ed out in the desert of L.A. County, then eighth grade English, and later earned her Clear Teaching Credential in Secondary Ed English, again, at the local university. After giving birth to her two boys, Lucas and Liam, she began teaching Introduction to Speech Communication at a community college in the desert, and remained there for nearly twenty years. She moved to Colorado when both boys went to college and she is now living back East with her three horses, dog and her husband, Thomas.

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© 2023 Shai Blumberg. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 05/25/2023

ISBN: 979-8-8230-0691-0 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-8230-0690-3 (hc)

ISBN: 979-8-8230-0692-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023907533

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Part 1: A Gentler Time

Part 2: Tumult

Part 3: The Journey

Part 4: Coming Home

Part 5: Not Enough Goats

Part 6: Growing Up

Thank You, Jesus, for bothering with the

likes of me and countless others…

To my parents, who were a wealth of love and good intentions. Thank you, Mommy and Daddy.

To my grandma, to my best friend, and to Pastor. Thank you all for showing me The Way.

To my sisters, thank you for still loving me even though I’ve taken a rather circuitous route that probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense much of the time.

PART ONE

(1959-1974)

A Gentler Time

Still a child unsmothered by weeds

Still a child untainted by greed

You will never again be so free

I

It seemed like I was on the cusp of something great for as long as I could remember, only for the longest time, nothing great ever happened. It was most frustrating, because even as a young child, I was quite bored with just about everything, and I could hardly wait for my life to begin. My mother and father both worked hard and made sure there was plenty of food, tennis and cello lessons, opportunities to attend such things as Bluebirds, Sunday school at the temple on Wilshire Boulevard, and visits to various friends’ homes and visa versa. It was all mostly very tame and predictable, with only occasional mishaps, such as when the Clemmings boys talked me into pretending I was Lassie and had me lie down in a trunk in their attic, curled up in my Lassie-bed, only to slam the lid down and lock me in. My frantic screams quickly summoned my very frightened mother and a mortified Mrs. Clemmings, and that was the end of that. Of course, I have claustrophobia issues to this day, but that is another topic altogether.

One of my other earliest memories is at a gas station with my mother. We were in the old white Buick. A gas station attendant came out to fill her tank and wipe her windows. He was crying. Ma’am, he said, the President has been killed. My mother started to cry. I asked her what was wrong. She said a great man had been shot. I think it was the first time I’d ever seen my mother cry and I felt a little scared.

I was not an angel. Another of my earliest memories was throwing a temper tantrum when we lived on Pond Avenue, and my mother promptly putting me in my room and closing the door. I remember throwing some of my toys and games all about and then standing on my bed and screaming, and for some strange reason, hot dogs and hamburgers were floating around me. I was grabbing at them. Perhaps I had fallen asleep in furious exhaustion at that point and was dreaming? A year or two later, after moving to Oak Street, I learned the agony of jealousy and the unfortunate habit of gossiping and putting others down behind their backs so I would feel better about my jealousy. My best little girlfriend Christina had come over to play Barbie dolls with me. Christina’s parents were often not home so we could do more things over there (when my mother let me go there). Christina had a swimming pool, her father was a movie star (not a big one, but he was one, nonetheless), she had long blonde hair, was taller than me, had a nice big brother named Brendin, and the list went on ad infinitum. The evil seed of discontent had been planted. My family was just sitting down to our Saturday night barbeque ritual of hot dogs and hamburgers, round-cut fried potatoes, baked beans, and Neapolitan ice cream for dessert. The last I’d seen of Christina she was packing up her Barbies. I sat down to dinner and proceeded to do what I did best when I was feeling inferior to Christina. I started to put her down. Oh that Christina, I began. She is so this…and so that. (I can’t even remember what she did or said that got me started.) My bigger sister Lina had a half-smirk, half-horrified look on her face as if she couldn’t decide whether to pity me or laugh at me.

Well, you might as well just tell her to her face. She’s right over there. I turned around and to my horror, there Christina sat, right where I had left her, in the living room which was attached to our dining room. She was finishing up putting away her dolls. I only remember turning bright red in the face and having the first of many of what I later learned to refer to as shame attacks. I can’t recall apologizing or anyone suggesting I do so. I think I just continued eating and trying unsuccessfully to rid myself of the awful embarrassment I was feeling, and not knowing how to do it. Not knowing how to fix my uncomfortable feelings was to become another ongoing issue for me.

I had a wonderful Grandma Lizzy, who lived somewhere in a brick bungalow in Brooklyn, New York. Grandma Lizzy came to visit us in California every so often, with her red hair and bluish-green eyes. She loved flowers and Jesus, the latter in our family being found somewhat distressing because we were Jewish, and for some reason, it was considered in poor taste to ever mention the J word (Jesus). It just wasn’t done. But Grandma Lizzy had become a believer in Jesus later in her life, sometime in her forties, when my father was a young teenager, and she had dragged all six of her kids to church and had them baptized, which was probably quite confusing for a bunch of Jewish kids growing up in Brooklyn, but that was what she did. And now, visiting us all in California, it seemed that Jesus was all she could talk about. Christina and I sat entranced as she went on about how much He loved us and wanted to save us. Of course, we didn’t know what she was talking about. When Grandma Lizzy tried to explain to us about hell, I remember Christina and me putting our ears to the floor to see if we could hear anything down there. I also remember my mother putting her hands over my ears, her eyes pleading with Grandma to stop. Liz, she’d say and discreetly shake her head. Everyone loved Grandma Lizzy, including my mother. But the Jesus thing was definitely taking it all too far. Looking back on it, Grandma Lizzy was like a prophetess, compelled to shout out the Good News to whoever would listen. Nothing daunted her. She didn’t care if you didn’t want to hear it either. But there was something about her guileless desire to reach everyone that made you just love her. Her blue eyes would change to green as she talked, until my dad would say, Ma, that’s enough.

Then there was school. That. I vaguely remember kindergarten, and my mother having to stay with me my first morning because evidently, I pitched a fit whenever she tried to leave. But after that day she no longer attended school with me. I remember old Mrs. Swift, with her short, reddish-gray hair in a wavy upsweep like schoolteachers often wore back then, dealing with twenty or more rambunctious little balls of energy, all with our own unique problems. My problem, I remember, was that I had to blow my nose quite often. It was always full and needed to be cleared. Rather than give me a box of tissues after asking one time too many for one tissue, Mrs. Swift flatly said, No, sit down. I was horrified. What was I going to do? My nose was about to burst. So I did the only thing I could do. I blew into my hand and closed my little fingers around it, waiting tensely for an opportune time to do something about the predicament I was in. Unfortunately, none seemed to come. I sat forlornly on the rubber play mat out on our little playground, holding my hand closed, and it wasn’t until well after morning snack time, which to a five-year-old is an eternity, that I was able to finally go to the washroom and wash away my shame of the day.

I wasn’t always on Mrs. Swift’s bad side, however. There was a time Mrs. Swift had to step out of the room for a few minutes and told us all to behave. It was nap-time. Well, Donnie Meyer, or maybe it was Butch or Roger, they started playing around, and then some of the girls started to join in, and before long there were twenty-five little kindergartners poking, prodding, pushing, laughing, rolling, and gesticulating wildly all over the floor on their mats. All but me. I had by great luck happened to see Mrs. Swift coming back across the playground in large, deliberate strides, so I demurely put my hands in my lap, staring straight ahead at the ABC chart, mayhem, total, swirling around me. I must have looked like a perfect little lady, sitting there primly amongst it all. Never mind I could have alerted the whole class, but no, I distinctly remember I wanted the singular glory of Mrs. Swift’s praise. And I got it. She stormed into the room, clapping her hands rapidly to get everyone’s attention. I blinked at her with seemingly innocent brown eyes as she took in the scene. Well! She huffed, You are all getting red cards (or whatever terrible thing it was that happened to one who really made the teacher mad in those days) and a shortened recess! All except Shai. I beamed, wriggling in the delight of my success, oblivious to the glares and stares of my classmates. And that was the beginning of yet another onslaught of feelings to cause me great trouble later on in my life. I would take any opportunity to gain recognition or approval. Unfortunately for me, I got in trouble as much as I got approval. At least in elementary school.

This brings me to the cloakroom incident. By the fourth grade, I was quite the talker. Our teacher at that time was Miss Hamel. Miss Hamel was younger and prettier than Mrs. Swift. She wore her hair in ringlets that somehow formed a large honey-colored beehive high above her head. And her skin was very white and creamy. She had a delicate figure and was continuously telling my newest girlfriend Lorraine and I to be quiet. Being quiet at that time in my life was seemingly impossible. My attention span was as limited as ever. If I wasn’t talking, I was daydreaming, and by the time I’d come to, Miss Hamel had already explained how to do number lines or fractions or whatever it was we were learning in the fourth grade. I would panic and try and get up to speed, but it was inevitably too late and I’d either have to try and copy someone or ask him or her how to do it. Well, this day Miss Hamel was done asking me to be quiet. Off to the cloakroom she sent me. As I stood, humiliated, surrounded by everyone’s jackets and lunch boxes, it occurred to me that lunchtime was a good hour away and that I was quite hungry. What happened next does not make me proud. As a matter of fact, it later caused one of those shame attacks I mentioned earlier. Rather than focus on my lunch box, I began rummaging through everyone else’s, taking a potato chip here, a cookie there, just a little at a time so no one would notice. I don’t remember getting caught, but I do vaguely remember thinking this was not normal behavior and that I ought to be very ashamed of myself. And so I was. I don’t remember being sent into the cloakroom again, although I do remember bringing Lorraine in there during recess and rummaging around with her, terrified that Miss Hamel would come bursting in the door any minute and catch us. For some reason living dangerously with Lorraine seemed more important than staying out of trouble…

Then there was Bluebirds. I hated Bluebirds more than anything. I hated the blue uniform. Why I couldn’t be a Brownie and an eventual Girl Scout like everyone else, I couldn’t understand, but this was what my mother signed me up for and this was where I was expected to be. Excepting I didn’t want to be there. It was after school, and as far as my mind could see, I’d just been in school all day, having to sit and try and pay attention, which was no easy feat, and here my mother expected me to sit and try and focus on making some stupid craft. I hated making crafts. Cutting, pasting, coloring, measuring…I had no patience for it at all and much like learning fractions and timelines, I would spin off somewhere else in my mind, and by the time I came back, everyone seemed to know what to do but me. So one day, Lorraine and I came up with a plan. Well, really it was my plan, but Lorraine encouraged me. It was Thursday. Bluebird day. I decided, with Lorraine’s enthusiastic support, to write and distribute notices to all the Bluebirds and their mothers, that Bluebirds was canceled today. I painstakingly wrote all fifteen notices, as carefully as I could, informing everyone of the cancellation. We then passed them out to our fellow Bluebirds. This of course created quite a disturbance, and all the mothers were apparently calling each other in confusion, trying to verify the truth. Of course, it all traced back to me. My mother was none too happy about it either. I don’t remember if anything really bad happened to me, but I do remember I didn’t go to Bluebirds anymore after that. And this was just fine with me.

II

At this point, I do feel I need to backtrack a little. I had always been a bit of a tomboy. I think this was partly because I was the only girl on my dead-end street for seemingly the longest time. There were plenty and plenty of little boys to play with. There was Ricky and Brett, down the long driveway catty-corner to our front yard, there was John and Patrick directly across the street, although Patrick was still a baby really and didn’t much count, there was Daniel at the dead end, and of course the Clemmings boys, but at this point, I was forbidden to see the Clemmings boys. We used to throw what we perceived as wild, skateboarding parties, where we would take over the block and skate up and down the very slight incline of the street to the dead end where Daniel lived. I wasn’t allowed to go to Daniel’s house either. Come to think of it, I don’t think my mother let me go to any of their houses if she could help it, although I do remember successfully being able to visit John and Patrick across the street occasionally. John’s father was a well-known cartoonist and surfer and he was sort of one of the first stay-at-home dads, an icon of sorts. He was the nicest man, I remember, tall and lanky. He smoked cigarettes and wore a straw hat and had horn-rimmed glasses. They had lots of little pug dogs and I remember my mother thought the house was dirty, and it probably was, but I still found it intriguing to go there. When we weren’t stepping over things looking for other things to play with there, we would often go to my garage and play house. I would make John be the daddy, and I the mommy, and boss him all over the place. But I think Daniel and Brett got wind of our garage game and came over to teach us how to play doctor, and my mother started letting me go to Christina’s house a bit more after that, even though her mother was a psychiatrist and was rarely home.

But my mother’s real worries began upon the arrival of Flora Linda. Where Christina lived to our left, Mr. and Mrs. Geoffrey were our neighbors on the right. Mrs. Geoffrey was in a wheelchair from polio, and Mr. Geoffrey had a leg brace from World War II. They had one daughter, Jeanie, an older girl in her very late teens, a young adult who didn’t live there anymore. And one day, they adopted a beautiful little blonde girl named Flora Linda. But as beautiful as Flora Linda was, she was also a bit off. My mother seemingly figured that out right away, but the Geoffreys were always, always home, and promised to keep a good eye on us, so I was allowed to play with Flora Linda at her house quite frequently. I don’t remember exactly why Flora Linda was such trouble, but it seemed every time I went there something inappropriate happened. Flora Linda, being two years older than me, caused parents to assume she was the ringleader. And she may have been. I do remember dreading sleeping over at her house for various reasons. Flora Linda would tell scary stories and Mr. and Mrs. Geoffrey would give us oodles and oodles of candy to take upstairs to the little balcony room they had built into their cathedral-ceilinged, Spanish-style living room, a charming little alcove they designed just for Flora Linda to play in with her friends. Christina had come over once or twice, but for some reason that I can’t remember, her mother had deemed Flora Linda a sociopath, much as my mother sort of had, and forbade Christina to go there anymore. I almost wished my mother forbade me too, but she didn’t. I do remember not being able to fall asleep, and feeling very uneasy like something just wasn’t right. I think one night I even crept back to my own house in the middle of the night. At any rate, Flora Linda and I ran hot and cold. Christina was my bestie, and there was nothing Flora Linda could do about that, except hang out with bigger girls her age, which she eventually did. So we’ll get back to Flora Linda. Because unfortunately, I did start hanging out with her more, a bit later…

Wednesday nights were very special in my house back then. My mother would roll out the black and white Sylvania television on an old plastic TV tray on wheels, setting it up in the hallway of all places, near where our bedrooms were, and we girls would get pillows and prop ourselves against whatever wall we could find, and watch Lost in Space, The Dating Game and Here Come the Brides. It was probably the most time I spent with my sisters at any one time. We were not the type of family that did lots of things together all the time. We were all involved in our own independent activities. My mother had always said we girls were all very different from each other. Of course, we had our Saturday night barbeques, and three weeks a year in the summer my dad piled us all in his Studebaker station wagon and we would drive across the country to visit our relatives back east. Sometimes we’d take the southern route, sometimes the central, sometimes the northern…but I was very little for most of those trips and don’t remember too much. My sisters Hanna and Lina had real adventures, from what I’ve been told, but those are their stories to tell…

I also remember Christina and me taking ice-skating lessons at the rink in Santa Monica. Neither of us was amazing but I had seen Peggy Fleming on TV and I was bound and determined to get amazing. But ice-skating was clearly not my gift. Try as I did, I couldn’t spin more than three twirls so it seemed. Christina was only slightly better. I just couldn’t let go and let it happen. I could cross my feet ice skating backward very nicely and work my way into the beginning of a beautiful spin, but the spin went nowhere and I couldn’t seem to get past it. All the while, I had my eye on a beautiful velvet, forest green ice skating tutu/dress combo with white and pink little flowers embroidered on its hemline. How I longed to spin while wearing that tutu! Sadly, my mother didn’t buy me the little dress until I was on my last legs with the whole ice-skating thing. By the time she got it for me, ice-skating with Christina was on its way out.

The school playground scenario had a unique dynamic that left its own indelible mark on me, for better or for worse. Christina was half a grade younger than me, so I didn’t have her to play with during recess. For some odd reason, I had a penchant for the downtrodden, bullied, and neglected of our class. As a matter of fact, I felt so badly for them, I longed to be one of the downtrodden myself, but I just had too many friends. Not that I was popular like the really pretty girls, but everyone seemed to like me. I was, in fact, a nice kid. But one day I decided to undo all that. It started with Jasper Crowley. They were teasing him again. I came to his rescue and whisked him away, offering to play handball with him with one of the giant pinkish-red rubber balls we played with back then, jeers of k-i-s-s-i-n-g! resounding in the background. I felt a sickening satisfaction in suddenly being one of the downtrodden, but it didn’t last long because I think Jasper Crowley soon tired of me and everyone forgot about my socially foolish heroic act and inevitably liked me again. So I tried the same thing with Nikoli Harney. Nikoli had a speech impediment and I think he was British. I’m from Cicinatti he would say, unable to pronounce the N in Cincinnati. They were pretty merciless to him as well. I befriended him as I did Jasper, and I think we even had a play date or two, but it all faded away…And then Deidre came to our school.

Deidre had flaming red hair, pale skin, and a face full of freckles. She probably would have been considered quite attractive today, but not then. Plus, she had the unfortunate habit of picking her nose with her very long fingernails…Even I resorted to writing a song about her, after the Chiffon butter jingle on the television. I chanted to all who would listen, If you think it’s butter, but it’s SNOT! It’s Deidre Mott… Mind you, I am not proud of this. Nor am I particularly proud of what came to follow. It turned out that Deidre had a horse. A small bay horse named Cali that the Ramseys had sold her. And of all things, Cali stayed in her backyard! I was beside myself with envy. I loved horses and would do anything to be near one. Unfortunately for me, my mother was terrified of them so she wouldn’t let me anywhere near Deidre’s house if she could help it, and if I did manage to wheedle my way over there, she would strike a deal with Deidre’s mother that I was under no circumstances to go into the backyard near the horse. Well, eventually that restriction miraculously came to end somehow. Whether it was my father who told my mother she was being ridiculous, or Deidre’s mother, who also happened to be a psychiatrist, somehow convinced my mother she was being overprotective and neurotic, I don’t really know. One can only surmise at this point, but I do know that somehow, with many rules in place, I was allowed to visit the horse! Muriel White from down the street, a bigger girl than Deidre and I was helping Deidre with Cali. We were all going to sit on her in the corral! I was dancing with anticipation. Muriel had gotten out the saddle and bridle and brushes. Apart from riding horses at the Jewish camp I’d gone to a few summers before up in the hills of Hawaii Heights, I really hadn’t had much riding experience at all. But I certainly wasn’t going to let Muriel or Deidre know that. Muriel asked me if I knew how to put on a saddle. Sure, I said, a little fear running through me because I really had no clue and was terrified of looking stupid. Muriel disappeared for a bit. Deirdre was up at the house, apparently not nearly as excited about Cali as I was. I think her mother had recently divorced and had gotten Deidre the horse to pull her out of her shell. Well, there I was with Cali and the saddle. I studied it for a minute, trying to figure out which part went toward the front of the horse and which part went to the back. But my brain just couldn’t put it together. Visual acuity was apparently not one of my gifts…Finally, I put on the pad, and the saddle, did up the girth, and stood back to survey my work. It’s on backward was all I heard to break my surveillance. I turned around and met the neutral face of Muriel, who had a few little sisters of her own and was probably used to ones like me who said they knew how to do things when they didn’t. Blushing and sputtering, I think I said something like, I know…I thought it was… I was terribly embarrassed and proceeded to have one of my infamous shame attacks, which no one knew about except me, because they happened deep inside me where only I could wallow, replaying my horror over and over in my mind. But that was all temporarily postponed, because before long, I was sitting on Cali in Deidre Mott’s backyard, saddle on the right way, and it was one of the most thrilling experiences I had in the fifth grade…

Beating Donnie Meyer at the 30-yard dash was also a thrill. But not for him. He was very, very serious about sports, and was obviously mortally wounded when I left him in the dust and was proclaimed the fastest runner in the class. Biting back tears of humiliation, he came up to me and shook my hand after the race, and I very solemnly shook his hand back, feeling bad that I didn’t feel that badly. You see, Donnie had never liked me much. I still remembered when my father was dropping me off at school late one morning way back in the first grade. I went to one of those little schools with three hundred kids who all stayed together from Kindergarten all the way through the sixth grade. There wasn’t a whole lot of turnover. We all knew each other very well by the end of elementary school because we’d been together since we were five. Well, for some reason my dad was dropping me off on his way to work. We were late. My father was a brilliant man, a scientist for a think tank, but that didn’t make him brilliant when it came to dropping off little girls on busy streets and navigating them to the attendance office. The building lay just across from where he’d parked. My Dad sent me on my way. I remember getting out of the car and wondering if my mother would send me on my way like this, but that’s all I remember before I heard the blare of a car horn and my dad scream my name like a girl. Heart pounding, I found my father next to me. I remember feeling embarrassed for my dad and feeling guilty for causing him to scream like that, and of course, I had a good long shame attack later on…When I got to class, late, I remember slipping into my seat and whispering to Donnie Meyer, I just almost died. I almost got run over. My heart was still pounding a little.

I wish you had, he hissed back. So I sort of knew where I stood with Donnie Meyer. And that’s why I didn’t feel too terribly bad when I beat him at the thirty-yard dash in the fifth grade.

III

As I already mentioned, my dad was considered very smart. He was gone for three months at a time during the Viet Nam War, and it wasn’t because he was drafted. He was there inventing weaponry and strategy which Bendt Corp., the think tank where he worked, sold to the US military. But I think being the father of three little girls really baffled him. When we still lived on Pond Ave, when I was even littler, maybe three, somewhere during the temper tantrum/floating hot dogs and hamburgers era, my next-door neighbor and best little friend, Bennett, decided we were going to have a contest with bugs and tricks they could do. He had an ant, which walked very diligently…away. Being very competitive, even at an early age, I was ready to top that. I produced a sow bug, which I proceeded to put in my ear. Unfortunately, I couldn’t retrieve it, which caused me great distress. I went into the house, howling for my mother, who was out shopping. But Daddy was home. I hiccupped out my dilemma to him between sobs, and being the scientist that he was, he looked in my ear, said he couldn’t see it, and then produced an eye dropper, which he inserted in my ear and flushed water therein. I howled even louder. By then, my mother had stepped into the house with groceries in tow, assessed the situation, and looked in my ear. Oh! Here it is! She made a quick little flicking motion and said, All gone…! And that was that. My mom was the bomb and no one could tell me otherwise. To this day I don’t know if she ever really found that sow bug.

This brings me to another not-so-pleasant memory. This may have been just before the Mrs. Swift era of my life, so I couldn’t have been more than five. We were on vacation on the Mexico border, staying at a fairly well to do hotel. The pool was big and crowded. I’d learned how to swim a little the previous summer, but hadn’t attempted to since. So I was hopping around in the shallow end just sort of getting up my nerve. Tippy toeing here and there, I was up to my chin, a little farther, and uh-oh, the water was over my head and I couldn’t remember how to swim. I frantically tried to hop above the water to the shallower parts, but the pool bottom slant was steeper now and I couldn’t manage to beat the downward slope’s momentum. I knew I was in trouble. All I remember was two men grabbing me by each arm and whooshing me up and onto the pavement, to my great relief. And for some reason, my mother’s pointy sunglasses (I called them cat glasses back then) were floating in the water. And my mother was walking up the pool steps with her Bermuda shorts and tennis shoes and button-up cotton blouse on, soaking wet. It turns out, while the rest of the family was laughing at her seeming over protectiveness, (yet again), I was drowning. And her jumping in with her glasses and all her clothes caused them to really pitch a fit until those two men beat her to it and pulled me out. And of course, you guessed it; I was one very ashamed little girl. Quite embarrassed for my dear mother…and