It is around 8:00 AM this Sunday, LeRoy. I’ve been up for some time, making coffee, watching dawn in Ajijic sneak into my office facing east.

I have counted the number of places I’ve lived, in fact when our three daughters get together on very infrequent occasions, we have contests as to who made the most moves. The winner is decided on the basis of definitions: do three moves in the same city count? Or can you only count a new city or country. The discussions are often animated…and amusing. This much I know, however, by the time I was six years old, going to a Catholic school in the first grade in Van Nuys, California, I had moved at least eight times, six in Massachusetts, a couple of them because of my father’s TB bed-ridden needs, one with a family after his death while my mother tried to figure out how to make a living as a travelling sales lady. And then she decided to move to California (one of the “moves” I made was being born in Auburn, California, because my grandfather lived there and my father needed to be in mountain air, and returning to Boston where their families were for his health). So I moved at least eight times in my first six years and I suppose that accounts for the fact I have no “roots” whatever. My roots are where I am.

My relationship with my step-father you have read. I never doubted the love my mother had for me and vice versa, but I had such a peculiar childhood, it doesn’t compare with many people. I was glad to go to Mont la Salle. To get away from a really ugly devorce, and it probably changed my life from being a completely indifferent student into someone curious about just about everything.

My best this fine Sunday.

Don