Lost in 2018 - A Friend

We're both short, but Penny was tiny and slender whereas I am quite a bit more well-rounded.  When we went out to eat, I would finish my plate and she would take a few bites and offer me the leftovers.  Sort of an odd couple.  Initially we had reading in common, political and mystery, mostly.  I don't think of her as gregarious, but she was welcoming, whereas I make friends cautiously.  She is the reason I know pretty nearly all the the women I know and love here in Charleston.

She loved learning, as do I, but in really different ways.  She tried to nudge me into taking college courses with her and reading beyond my mystery-escape-fiction tendencies.  She got her doctorate in I'll say some kind of chemistry when she was in her sixties and was deservedly proud of it.  After that she began to learn Pashto, and got so involved in the history and culture of Afghanistan that she spent a year there teaching.  Then she had a book published about her experiences there.

Whereas I took beach vacations in Florida, and I began to play tennis again.

Penny was my closest friend for a dozen years or so.  She was my support system, and for someone like me who can be insecure and at times thin-skinned, I never EVER felt judged by her.  As I sit here, I remember her cynical half-grin, sitting at Seanachie with her bottle of beer or glass of pinot grigio, sometimes sharing but mostly listening.  Because she was the only drinking buddy I have had since college.

We got together almost like clockwork, every two or three weeks, for drinks and often dinner, although the dinner part appealed to me more than to Penny.  She told me she had no sense of smell and that was why food had little attraction for her.  Ironically, she liked to cook and talk about food, and try new things -- more so than I did.  She would sometimes find a food at a restaurant that she liked so much she would go back over and over again until she suddenly tired of it and never wanted to go there again.  If she had a meal she didn't like the first time she went to a restaurant, it was likely she would refuse to go there ever again, despite reviews and raves from friends.

Penny was comfortable meeting and getting to know people of all kinds in all settings.  She enjoyed sitting at a bar and casually chatting with people she didn't know.  When she made what we all considered a disastrous move from the lively Folly Beach to isolated rural Meggett, she found the one bar, where possibly no liberal had ever set foot, and became a regular.  She told hilarious stories about debates at the bar, not unlike the crew at Donald E. Westlake's fictional O.J. Bar and Grill, where John Dortmunder and his unlikely gang of thieves met to plan their heists.  I bugged her to put the stories in writing, but sadly, she did not.  We worried about her safety, but apparently she held her own.

I, on the other hand, will go into a restaurant or bar and hide behind a book until my food came, or my friend showed up.

I could tell Penny anything.  Anything.  Over the years, she opened up to me about her life, although rarely about her health, which was a source of frustration and sadness as her problems worsened.  We talked about our families, each extraordinarily dysfunctional in their own special ways, as dysfunctional families tend to be.

She was the person I could share anything with.  I write that with amazement.  One time over drinks I told her the worst thing I ever did, a secret that had been skulking in my mind for decades.  I don't remember what she said, but what she conveyed wasn't "no big deal" anymore than "wow - you did that?"  It was more like "okay, that happened."  And with that, I was able to move on.

Penny could certainly register a criticism.  She complained about me putting up with my long-distance husband when he had his fits of rage, and couldn't comprehend that from a distance he was my best friend.  When I agonized over my relationship with my daughter -- before I knew her son -- she told me I was too involved, again, with the cynical half-grin.  And then I saw her with her son, whom she totally doted on.  And worried about at least as passionately as I worried about my daughter.

As easy as it was for Penny to talk to others, she was a private person.  There were places she would not go with you.  She only openly admitted her age to me months before she died.  Her health problems were completely off limits.  And she absolutely hated when people tried to take pictures of her.

That tiny woman could terrify people.  You DID NOT want to refer to her as Miss, Mrs., or certainly, "hon."  She quickly and in no uncertain terms informed the individual, whether it was a server at a restaurant or a doctor's receptionist, that "I am NOT 'hon'; I am Doctor Travis."  While I cringed for the poor young man or woman taking our order, I was proud of her for insisting that others know she had status.

She never terrified me, because despite her sharp tongue, she was extraordinarily gentle.  She worried over hurting people's feelings, for example, when our little lunch group was bursting its seams and she had to let people know not to invite all their friends.  She was gentle with me.  And there whenever I needed her.

And so, as I was losing her to whatever poorly defined illnesses were incapacitating her, I was aware that I was losing my best friend.  She died one short month after my sister, in August.  I had lunched with her when I came home from the funeral, told her the sad stories and the funny ones.  She wasn't feeling very good, and barely touched her food.  She had pretty much stopped drinking, which was even sadder to watch, because she enjoyed her glass of wine and wouldn't have considered a meal without one.

But she still listened.

In very different ways, losing my sister (two years younger than me) and my closest friend (ten years older) has shaken me where I am most mortal.  I have learned over my life not to get too close, not to share too much, not to be too vulnerable.  I imagine I will not have another close friendship.  I am amazed that I was lucky enough to have this one, that grew so easily over the years.

By the way, she would have killed me if she knew I had taken this picture.  It turns out it was a risk worth taking.

Lost in 2018 - Sisters

Nobody expected my sister Jennie to die last summer, and yet we all knew that her precarious health made it likely that she could go anytime.  After my husband died in 2014, she was the person I could call if I needed to hear a voice, and cautiously talk about my frustrations.  I mostly enjoyed telling her stories that made her laugh.

Jennie was two years younger than me.  She was the comedian; I was smart and looked as though I carried the weight of the world on my shoulders.  She was pretty and knew how to dance.  I persisted in learning the steps but always felt I looked like I was lumbering.  She was slender and a little bit fragile looking, while I was chubby from the time I was born.

Over our teen years, Jennie was witness to fights between me and my father that were sometimes violent, and to periods of months in which he and I did not speak to each other.

To be fair, not speaking was my father's modus operandi, I just learned it from him.  And so did Jennie.  When he died, it was inevitable that she would find me at such great fault that she broke off with me completely.  My children were four and seven when he died, and it did not take too long before they had lost their aunt, who had been crazy about them.

Underneath it all, I blamed myself, because I knew everybody else did, and because it hurt my kids.  But over the years I tried to open up the lines with pictures and short notes.  It took her fifteen years to feel ready to reconcile, and it so happened she responded to my letter asking to get together just as my youngest was heading to Harvard.  I remember being shocked at how much older they both were, as I'm sure they were toward me, but we talked and laughed during dinner as though those fifteen years and bad feelings had never happened.

She, and my youngest sister Patricia, missed my kids childhoods, and they missed having their two aunts.  How ironic and sad that Jennie was only able to reconcile as my youngest was leaving the nest.

And now the burdens of Jennie's death have repeated the process with Patricia.  I understood that her loss would be greater than mine, because they had been close all these years.  I supported her in her decisions, kept my hurt over some financial decisions to myself as best I could, and only once offered a firm opinion, on property that had been in my family since somewhere around 1900.  That was the opening for Patricia to cut me off.

I am glad that my children are working to keep up their relationship with Patricia, that I did not pass on that nonsense about not speaking whenever there is a difference.  But when they walked outside to make the Christmas phone call, excluding me because Patricia would not want to talk to me, it pained me.  Part of me wished they would defend me, they would be angry at her for hurting me.  My mother died so many years ago, and it seems that in my life, in my family, she is the only person who defended me when I was wronged.  Not my husband, not my father, not either of my sisters, and not my children.

It would be nice if I did not feel hurt, but I am trying to feel hurt rather than anger.  Anger has worked too much disease into my family of origin, and I am so, so proud that my children don't harbor resentments the way I was taught and had to work so hard to unlearn.

But the fact is, I am reeling from Patricia's decision to cut me off.  This after my last visit with her, when I felt closer to her than I had ever felt.  As we shared letters, pictures and memories, we laughed and cried together.  She told me about how she had felt all those years ago that she couldn't talk to me if Jennie wasn't talking to me or risk her wrath, and about how she did not understand what circumstances caused Jennie to finally be ready to reconcile.  And yet, here we are, as she repeats that sad history.

And Jennie.  She was once a bright and happy girl, who became an insecure and troubled woman.  Her friends loved her for her humor and her passion.  But she distrusted so many others, and to them she wrapped herself in a cold shell.  And I was one of those for so many years.

We were never able to talk about our childhood, except for a handful of superficial stories, even in the last nine years we had together.  Too many landmines.  Another tragedy because there was so much I wanted to talk to her about.  I wanted to hear and see what she lived through in our stormy house, and maybe uncover some warm memories that I had buried under the turmoil.

But what we had over the past years was pretty good.  I could call her anytime.  When my daughter and I had a rough patch, she listened.  On those weekend days when I had spent just a few too many days alone, I knew I could call her, and we could laugh a bit.  My daughter just told me that during the four hour flight home after the holidays, my grandbaby pooped three times, requiring three highly odorous walks through the plane to the restroom.  I want to call Jennie and tell her about it, so I can hear her laugh.

I know now that Jennie lived with a troubled heart, but would not share it with me.  She died alone, but after a day in the sun, just where she wanted to be.

She was my first good-bye in 2018.

Lost Before Dying

After Stephan's surgery for pancreatic cancer, for a year and a half, he was constantly, visibly, trying not to die.  Thick shakes with weird ingredients became the focus of his day, twice a day.  He tried to pick up his three-mile fast walk routine where he left it off, but ironically, removing the tumor didn't remove the pain of walking, but only changed it.  But he tried, daily.

He gave up his beloved cigars the day of the surgery, and when his doctor finally gave him the kiss of death by telling him he could go ahead and smoke again, he wasn't even tempted.

Our lives together centered around food, home cooking, Greek and Italian, food from the amazing garden we worked together.  He loved food, and lost his taste for it.  He would find something that at best tasted good and at worst didn't make him nauseated, and try to eat it on a regular basis, like a certain sliced turkey breast from Costco, and then take a couple of bites and put it aside.

After his surgery, he was no longer able to read.  When he visited Charleston in the past, it gave me great pleasure to bring a stack of books home from the library that I thought he would enjoy, and he would spend three weeks sitting on the porch, smoking cigars and reading.  During his last visit, he only read one book, a Discworld book that he found on my shelf that he thought he had missed.  I was so happy he found it and enjoyed it, but his desire and ability to focus never extended beyond that.

He tried to stay on top of politics, but damn, in his place I can't see him giving a shit what was going on.  He continued till near the end to try to be there for me when I needed to vent about problems, but his attention wavered, and I felt awful bothering him, so our telephone conversations were mostly about his health, and they were short and unhappy.  When I had lost his attention, he ended the call.

He lived with his daughter, and she cared for him in a way few could have done.  But she would send us all emails filled with really personal medical details, which angered me because they seemed to suck away his independence, his adulthood.  In the last couple of weeks, she answered his phone and spoke for him.  For all I know, he may well have been sitting there, shaking his head "no" when I asked to speak to him.  Or he may have been barely conscious.  Or she may have just wanted to take over the whole thing.

That was four years ago.  Less than a year ago, someone I had only just begun to know was diagnosed with cancer, and days after a successful surgery died from a massive heart failure.  We were stunned that a woman who had been so vibrant could so quickly be gone.

And then a woman who I had recently begun playing tennis with told me this story:

She had been at the courts the weekend before, watching a match, and a woman who was playing dropped onto the court and died instantly of a heart attack.  She was in her fifties.  When I reacted with shock, she said, "No, no, no, that's the way I want to go.  She was doing what she loved, and she never had any pain."

I remembered this when my sister died suddenly last month.  Jennie had just taken early retirement and as soon as the weather permitted, she began to do what she has always -- ALWAYS -- done: sit in the sun.  I imagine six or eight hours a day, minimum, she sat in the sun.  She didn't drink alcohol and assured us that she stayed hydrated.  We didn't know why, but we knew she was loving it.  Until one day she came into the house, went to bed, and never woke up.

Yesterday, my good friend Penny died.  She had been fighting for her life for two years and through three hospitalizations.  She was obstinately private about her health, so all we could do as she became more frail and obviously unwell was worry among ourselves.  We only knew things were bad when she would not show up at a luncheon she had scheduled and we learned she was in the hospital.  This last time, she instructed her son not to tell us which hospital she was in, although I don't believe a one of us would have showed up without an express invitation.

Anyway, it is a tremendous loss.  It is for another day to write about all the things Penny did to support me in her own brusque way, and how she brought so many of us together.  I will say that, after the awful 2016 election, Penny was determined to make a difference, and formed another group, which we ended up calling SWAT -- Smart Women Against Tyranny.  At one of the first formative meetings, I recall her barely being able to attend to what was being said.  This group was so important to her, and she had to work so hard to stay with it that day.  And then she had the first of the hospitalizations.

Over the next two years, my heart broke as my good friend became more confused, lost more weight, worried and suffered her health problems, and tried so hard to stay with us.

With Penny in the hospital, I organized the bi-weekly luncheon for yesterday.  None of us knew what was going on with her, so as we ate, one of us texted her son.  He replied immediately, that Penny had died that morning.  As we talked about what she meant to us, I realized that we were sitting in the restaurant where we had met, when I joined the group she was leading, Reading Liberally.  I pointed to the table we sat at, and remembered that I was the second one there that night, walking in to see her tiny figure sitting at that round table.

I have been mourning Penny for awhile now.  While I have been hoping for her to find that magic cure, I have missed the Penny that, when she was my age (67) went to Afghanistan to teach and wrote about it, and later went to Jordan, and rode a camel.  She continued to write and as far as I know was working on a novel.  She continued to organize our group, and donate her time to her favorite political candidate.  She continued to passionately hate what was happening to our country.

So as time passes, I will remember the Penny who had the health and the energy to do things that were daring, and to get us all involved.  I will miss the times we met for drinks and dinners, and the confidences about our past that we shared.

As I ruminate with others that are wrestling with our mortality, we have talked about going suddenly or lingering with an illness.   I am hoping that I have the courage -- and the choice -- to not linger before I am more of a worry than a companion.  At this point, with only one sister left and my first granddaughter on the way, I just want to shout STOP.  I don't want to do this.  But the other part of me that has been working on death and dying since I watched my husband do it four years ago says that I need to just live for the day, to appreciate what I have now.  I remind myself that everybody dies, and in the end, in the context of all the universes there are, my dying is truly no big deal.

But meanwhile, because we have the gift/curse of consciousness, we will experience the loss of friends and family as losing part of ourselves.  So cry today, and keep the memory, not of how they died, but how they lived.

Rocky Horror After All These Years

To anyone who has not ever seen Rocky Horror Picture Show, do not read any farther.  Go see it, and then come back.  I'll wait.

* * * * *

I go way back with Rocky Horror, having first seen it in D.C. during its live tour of the states somewhere in the late 70's.  People more in the know than I wore costumes, although I recall an announcement that, because these were live actors, we would not be allowed to throw stuff.  We were, however, allowed and encouraged to bring our cups of beer into the theater.

I honestly don't remember when I saw the movie version, but somewhere during the W. years I actually bought the 2-disc 25th anniversary DVD.  I don't often invest in a DVD, figuring that life is too short to imagine wanting to see a movie more than once.  Since then, I watch it every few years.  I also own the soundtrack.

The music is absolutely great rock 'n' roll.  The actors overact to perfection.  Tim Curry is just plain sexy.  The movie is a stitch.

So I have been thinking for years about going to a midnight showing of Rocky Horror.  Shortly after I moved here I learned that there were showings the first Friday of each month at James Island's Terrace Theater, a local treasure despite or possibly because of its sour management.  But midnight is pretty late for me; I like to be in my jammies much earlier.  And though I try not to let it, being older and living alone at times thwarts my sense of adventure.

But lately a great friend said she would really like to go to the midnight showing, and we made plans, three of us older women.  And let me just say here to those young folk who think they invented shock and pornography:  my generation OWNS Rocky.  Let's see what midnight showings y'all go to when you're sixty-six years old.  My guess is, Rocky.

When Rocky was a young cult film, it quickly became an audience participation thing.  Maybe because it is impossible to sit through it a second time without wanting to sing the songs and yell out the lines.  People brought props:  rice for the wedding scene, squirt guns for the rainstorm and toast for, well, the toast before dinner.

Sadly, last night we forgot to bring the rain gear.

And who could not want to jump up and do the "Time Warp?"

At some point, carried away by their muses, some just ran up to the front of the theater and began acting with their favorite character.  Hence, shadowcast.

The whole business of the shadowcast is important.  Because the version we saw last night had an actual paid shadowcast.  I scratched my head a little at that, thinking: wasn't it the audience that did the shadowing?  But I figured it was just something I had missed out on all these years.  It had to be great.

In fact, the shadow cast appeared to be having a good time.  They walked around for what seemed like hours, in costume of course, tossing f-bombs and selling raffle tickets.  An 11:30 showtime really meant midnight-ish, which is fine.  As the time approached, the guy in charge -- and imagine that, a guy in charge -- introduced the shadow cast, made some bad jokes, and then did a couple of really odd ice-breaker thingies.  By odd I mean choosing "virgins" from the audience (those who had never been to see Rocky) -- this was not the odd part -- having them come to the front of the theater, and play a game they called "pass the dildo."  Let me pause here to suggest that it would be more in line with the ambience of Rocky Horror to call it "pass the sausage."  Sausage being more suggestive, if you know what I mean.

There were a few rules, one of them being we weren't allowed to throw rice, which meant we three no longer had props.  I assumed this rule was because somebody got a kernel in the eye at some point, but I had to discount the potential injury rationale when, during the dinner scene, members of the cast began to toss handfuls of hard candy at us.  We were also warned that the cast would be circulating around the theater.  Consider us warned.

What I did not expect was that the shadow cast was LOUD.  They didn't just recite the lines, or even toss out the famous responses.  They stood on each side of the theater yelling obscenities that had little to do with what was actually going on, much like drill sergeants with Tourette's.  I felt for one of my friends who had never seen the movie (no, she did not stand when they asked for "virgins"), as there was no way she could pick up even the admittedly miniscule and obvious plot.

The saddest thing about this shadow cast is that they lacked, not subtlety, but cleverness.  There was a lot of yelling about sticking things in normally unmentionable places, and what I understand has evolved into a common routine of calling Janet a "slut."  Just not funny.  And, if you know me, you know I do not shy away from the occasional dirty word, but I do believe that if you are going to riff something clever, you ought to attempt to be clever at it.

Despite the shadow people, the audience was having a great time.  A lot of them were quiet, a number got up and did the Time Warp, the young lady in front of us should have been a member of a much better shadow cast.  I wondered why they needed to pay people to do what we in the audience would have been glad to do for free.  At times the yelling died down and it was great to see Rocky on the big screen.  And I don't mean to be snarky, but the fact that there wasn't a raised stage meant that you didn't even have to pay attention to the acting shadow cast members.

Rocky Horror Picture Show is just one sexy movie.  It reflects the freedom of the 70's, when the sexual freedom we are these days struggling to be allowed to express privately was celebrated publicly.  I hope Tim Curry doesn't mind that some of us think that Frank N. Furter is his greatest role ever, and Susan Sarandon just brings joy to discovering how great sex feels.

The sexiest word in the entire movie is... "antici   pation."  And it was shouted over.  What should have been a two-hour sexual tease turned out to be an assault.

So if you can, find a theater that is showing Rocky without a shadow cast.  When Dr. Scott enters the room and Brad yells "Great Scott!" you may want to have your roll of toilet paper to toss.  And you'll know when to shine your flashlight.

On Halloween night, I'll be at home watching my DVD with my black cat, Molly.  We won't be tossing rice, not because of injuries, but because I'd have to clean it up afterwards.  But I'll be singing along, shouting some of the lines, and I may even jump up and dance a little.

I am looking forward to it with great antici                                                                                                    pation.

On the Anniversary of the Death of Princess Di

This is what I was doing on the day Princess Diana died.

I was in Rhode Island, my home, with my family -- my husband, nearly ten-year-old daughter, and six-year-old son.  We were going to the Cajun Bluegrass Festival...

...which we had been doing every Labor Day weekend since 1992. This would be our last time there.  Marital tensions and an eventual move to South Carolina brought an end to those weekend festivals.

But in 1997, when I called in the summer to make reservations for the weekend, for some crazy reason, all my usual haunts were booked.  As were all the other hotels anywhere near Escoheag, and by anywhere near Escoheag, I mean thirty miles from Escoheag, which is nowhere near anything.

I couldn't believe there was nowhere in Rhode Island -- Rhode Island! -- that had a hotel room for us, so we just booked it on over there, and tried finding something along the motel/fastfood highway that runs from South County to Warwick.  Nothing.

We stopped in to visit a third cousin ("aunt"), one of the few family members I was close to, but apparently not close enough.  Guido, one of my favorite warm and sweet distant "uncles," worked in the post office, and back in the pre-internet travel days, he knew how to make his way around anything and anywhere.  So he dug around trying to find a motel with a vacancy.  It puzzles me to this day that an invitation to spend the night there was never offered.  I do come by my curmudgeonly ways honestly.

What Uncle Guido came up with was the Leprechaun Motel.  Sadly, the only reference I could come up with was from 2008.  But it looks a bit like this:

...only smaller and sadder.  I do recall a leprechaun smirking somewhere on a sign in front of the building.

I need to take a few moments to talk about the Leprechaun Motel, as it is such an important part of this story.  I grew up in Warwick, and the Leprechaun Motel has always, always been there.  It has always been a tiny building with a leprechaun somewhere in front of it, unimpressive, just there.

The room looked a bit like this one:

  

...only smaller and sadder.  I think it was somewhat dirty, but no critters.  The toilet worked erratically.  There may have been bunk beds crammed in with a double bed.  There was definitely a television set.

We no sooner got settled in than it started to rain.  Really rain.  So we decided on a movie.  It may have been a Disney movie, but I do remember waiting in front of the theater in the car and reading Tom Sawyer aloud.

Back at the hotel, we settled in as best we could.  The highlight of the stay was watching The Brady Bunch Movie before bed.

Since we had all begun to finally relax, that was when my husband flew into a rage.  After he was done making me crazy, he was fine, we continued to watch the movie, and in my mind we definitely moved out the next day.  I don't have any idea where we stayed the next couple of days, so it may have been a trick of my memory.

During that evening at the Leprechaun Motel, the movie was interrupted with the news of Diana's death.  I don't follow the royals, all I know is that she seemed to be just what those stuffed shirts needed:  a young, modern woman who was not from royalty and actually had some clue what the world was all about.

So I don't know what to say, really, about the fact that every single time I hear about Diana's death back in 1997, it is inextricably linked with our night at the Leprechaun Motel.

Heps of Happiness

If you are craving laughter that doesn't involve meetings with Russians, you have got to read Paula Poundstone's new book, The Totally Unscientific Study of the Search for Human Happiness.

Paula and I are kindred spirits.  If you are honest, most of you are kindred spirits with Paula Poundstone.  She reaches into my heart and tickles it.

I was so happy when she began to appear as a contestant on Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me.  If you could do scans of my brain while listening to Paula, you'd see the happiness part light up over and over and over.  When she says something hilarious, I laugh because it is a combination of surprise and recognition.

For example, if you ask her how she ended up with sixteen cats, she will tell you she had fifteen and then got one more.

She does have sixteen cats, and a couple of dogs so that people will think of her as a pet lover rather than a cat lady.  She has three adopted kids.  She has wrestled with her own demons, and she has wrestled with her kids and her pets.

I believe the idea for this book came out of her appearances on Wait, Wait.  She stops the show frequently when Peter Segal describes the results of a scientific experiment to demand to know things like:  who on earth would think of this?  and:  why would you even want to measure that? and:  I would like to know just how they got somebody to do that.

Putting two and two together, she came up with the brilliant idea of unscientifically searching for happiness.  She tries exercise, the internet, organizing, movie day, volunteering and more, and pseudo-scientifically describes in great details and tangents the results.

Last night I dreamed of my son, who is nearly twenty-six.  In the dream he was somewhere around four.  His image in my dream was so real I woke up smiling.  But in the dream he had come up to me and asked me if I would listen to him read, and I (lovingly) told him that I didn't have time right now.  That is the effect of being let in to Paula Poundstone's family.  It is the acknowledging of infinite love and innumerable shortcomings.

This is Paula:

Alley chose a college in Oregon.  I drove her the seventeen hours from here to there in time for her freshman orientation before I realized, I can't do this every day.  So I just left her.

My daughter would recognize me in that story.

Paula decided her family needed a movie day.  I have lots of movie stories, but two stand out.

One day, we went to a matinee (lower price) of a horror movie.  They were advertising a horror double feature later that day.  So we went out and grabbed a burger and came back for two more horror movies.

Another time, when my daughter was reading Macbeth in class, I suggested we watch some movie versions.  There were three at the library, so we spent a day watching all three and comparing them.  None of us to my knowledge is a big fan of movies of Shakespeare's plays, and honestly it isn't my idea of fun, but that day was fun.

A couple of years ago, I saw Paula perform at the Charleston Music Hall.  She began by telling the audience that she would love to talk to us after the show.  And then she performed for two full hours.  I hope she enjoyed it as much as we did, and that she didn't do it because she just couldn't think how to stop talking.  At one point, she lay down on the floor, I think to show us her socks.

She always finds a person in the audience to talk to, which is why I specifically ask for a seat farther back.  It is amazing when this happens, but I believe I would be the person who just sat there, unable to say a word.

Paula wrote one other memoir, in 2004, titled There's Nothing In This Book That I Meant To Say.  This means that I could be 79 years old when she writes her next one.  I can't wait.

Meanwhile she has a new podcast, Live from the Poundstone Institute, in which she continues her unscientific studies.  So that will help me get by while I wait for her next book.

Today is my birthday.  I am not with my family, but I have been so happy to spend the time with Paula and her family.  Thanks, Paula, for all the heps of happiness you have sent my way.

Harry Potter and the Aging Parents

Imagine my surprise to hear that Harry Potter turned twenty in June.  We all remember where we were when tragedy happens; I think discovering Harry Potter is one of those few and precious unforgettable joyful memories.

I remember the review I read that prompted me to pick up the book at our wonderful Emma S. Clark Library.  And I remember reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone on our patio in Stony Brook, Long Island, to my ten-year-old daughter and six-year-old son.  The dates don't seem to add up; it may have been an article about the book before the review, or it may just be magic.

It was always a beautiful summer day in my memory, so I will leave it as such.  In that following school year, in her sixth grade class, my daughter's teacher read the book to the students.

When we moved to Charleston in the fall of 1999, I began to volunteer at my son's school library.  When Harry and the Prisoner of Azkaban came out in 1999, the librarian, who was a wonderful woman who loved children and children's books, told me she would not be ordering a copy.  There were parents in the district who thought that the series was thought to advocate witchcraft, wizardry and... satanism.  She did not want to risk the can of worms that a challenge by an irate parent would open.  I was horrified.

But only a couple of years later, as an employee of the Charleston County Public Library, I saw that the tables had turned, and Harry Potter could not be stopped.  Not only were new books bought as soon as possible, but as soon as the book was on the library website, hundreds of requests for holds were placed.  In what I think was a questionable move on the administration's part, library employees were not allowed to place holds, not even when the book became available for hold to the public, until after the book was actually out and available.  No matter, it was one of the few purchases that was a given in my home.

I recall the excitement when the boxes came in to the branches, were loaded onto carts, as requests were filled and people came in to grab their copy.  I have never seen anything like it.

We had a tradition then in my family, that we would read the book together.  It is a tradition that I believe my daughter resents to this day.  Because she wanted to be first to read it, with all her friends.  I understand that now, but still put my foot down.  It was a family tradition that was golden, and I hated to let it go.  We sped the reading up, though, each of us grabbing the book to read chapters silently and then getting together at night to read one together.  A compromise, one I hope Antoinette understands.

Then there were the movies.  The search for Harry Potter.  Yes, I know I'm his mom, but there is no mistaking the resemblance:

I believe this is Harry with the Golden Snitch

Not just me -- for years his friends and even strangers would comment on Nik's resemblance to Harry Potter.

In 2004, I decided to start over, on my own, with Sorcerer's Stone.  I don't usually reread books; as the adage goes, "So many books, etc."  But this was special, and well worth it.

I know the play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, got great fanfare last year.  I read the book, and it was fine.  The movies were not as bad as the critics might lead one to believe.  But those seven books are miraculous.  They made our kids laugh and the dramatic adventures didn't just keep them on the edge of their seats, they were battles of right and wrong.  Kids that were averse to reading learned the pleasures that come from the pages of books.  They fired the imagination, created writers as well as readers.  They inspired independent and creative thought.  And they won the battle over censorship here in the town where my kids were growing up.

The other thing about Rowling's masterpiece is what the series did for children's literature.  Writers were inspired to write children's books that challenged the imagination.  Publishers, learning the lesson from those who had rejected Sorcerer's Stone, were willing to take a risk on new voices.  Stories were more courageous.

So, twenty years later, they may be fond memories for me and millions of others (and I may just take the time to read the series yet again), but Harry Potter and his adventures could be the most influential books in the history of children's literature.

So, if you haven't been to Hogwarts lately, you might just want to grab a handful of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, and that well-worn copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and enjoy the journey.