It’s the season to reminisce about family…  I’m a product of polar opposites, opposites who survived fifty years of marriage. Both taught school: one math, physics, chemistry; the other English, literature, drama. Dad, with great bravado, would whistle walking down the street.  He’d converse with total strangers.  This would embarrass Mom because she felt communicative only with a select circle of friends. It was an era when we were responsible for our own entertainment. Dad provided it splendidly, or at least the opportunity. He gave me and my bro bikes with gears, the first on the block. He bought an inlaid game table for checkers or chess. He bought us a piano, ice skates, a chemistry set, a crystal set radio, so on. Dad would also take us out on the town. Bro and I saw the Royal Canadian Mounted Police perform with their Lipizzaners.  Once, after a trip to the circus, Dad purchased a Shetland ...

Dilemma... I can't find a decent hairdresser. I've sisters with luxurious locks... They're younger... My hair was never as thick, or as glorious as theirs. As a newborn, our brunette sis came home with dark curly ringlets all over her head. A year later, our blonde sis came home without any hair at all...so light she looked as though... By the time they were in school, I did a Toni permanent on myself. It was cute. A teenager has to have the right hair! Much older, on my own, I had expert help. Lucky me, in L.A., I went to Vidal Sassoon's. At home in the Midwest, I found a just-right beautician. Then I moved miles away. Before we parted, she wrote out the details of my cut and color. At the first salon in my new town, I presented my letter to the beautician ( for-a-day) who couldn't read. Yes... it grows back. Yes... I can go somewhere else, which I have, over , and over... That was a few years ago. I've been to upscale salons, and to walk-in o...