KISSING GAME
In a box of childhood mementos, I came across my Bluebird autograph book with the entry above. In A Patchwork Memoir I wrote: The Cow Pasture wasn’t one, and there wasn’t a single desiccated cow pie to prove it ever had been, as far as Wolfy and I could discover. It was a…
WOLFY
Since Wolfy’s younger sister Mary was my brother’s friend, we were liable to make mischief as a foursome. Winter evenings we sat around telling spooky stories in my dark, starry bedroom. We’d turn out the lights and put a flashlight under an overturned wicker laundry...
COMMUNITY
I was seven when we moved into the upper half of a duplex on Raymond Ave, an apartment only a fraction of the size of our Dudley home and, speaking of losses, the first thing I remember is my cat, Timmy, running away. More than once we went back to the old neighborhood…
LIAR, LIAR
I wasn’t always shy. I was introspective as a child, but not introverted. In fact, looking back, I would call myself outgoing—a leader, even…until sixth grade, when I was traumatized by a series of events that have had a lasting impact on me. In first grade, in fact, I was chosen to give a little speech to all the parents for a school occasion, and the whole class sang the following song:
BUMBLEBEE
The only face missing from the quintet on Arielle's Halloween scrapbook page is Emma's—so I wanted to include a picture of her too. She's wearing yellow and black stripes because that's the year she was a bumblebee.
ALL HALLOWS DAY
Each year, at my place, my godkids and I made a gingerbread haunted house, using kits I bought at Cost Plus or Party City. We’d decorate it with candy corn, gummy worms, marshmallow ghosts and pumpkins, Skittles, jellybeans, and more. One year I discovered when I...