I’ve written a petition to remove Bill Cosby’s star from the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
 
No one can deny that Cosby was a brilliant comic, writer and social activist.
 
Now, Bill Cosby is also a convicted sex offender.  This new identity happened in a Pennsylvania courtroom two
months ago, when the once powerful entertainer was convicted of aggravated indecent assault against a former
Temple University employee named Andrea Constand. 
 
After the verdict came down, Cosby didn’t apologize.  Instead, he shouted expletives at the prosecutor.
 
Constand wasn’t Cosby’s only victim.  In fact, off-camera, the celebrity icon had long led a double life—drugging and then sexually attacking women for most of his career. Many were minors, and many were raped.  So far, more than 60 courageous women have come forward.
  
But who knew?  For most of us, Bill Cosby was the happily married father and funnyman who first caught our attention on the TV show I, Spy, playing globe-trotting espionage agent Scotty.  Over the next two decades, Cosby had other high-profile gigs—including shilling for Jell-O Pudding Pops; producing Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids cartoons, and writing for PBS’s The Electric Company.  He was also a passionate activist for education, especially literacy.  
 
Then came Bill Cosby’s greatest success. The Cosby Show was a mid-‘80s comedy that starred Cosby as sweater loving obstetrician/gynecologist Cliff Huxtable, who was also America’s Favorite Dad.  Looking back, could it be that the part Cosby created for himself was his own inside joke?
 
Indeed, Cosby’s role away from the studio—that of a serial rapist—was on full throttle.  
 
Barbara Bowman was an aspiring actress in 1985.  Bill Cosby had taken the naïve teenager under his wing, but rather than helping her with her career, assaulted her multiple times.  The last incident saw Cosby trying to unclip his belt buckle while Bowman furiously attempted to wrestle from his grasp.  Angered, he sent her home to Denver.  Bowman’s agent did nothing, and a lawyer accused Bowman of making it all up.  That feeling of futility kept Bowman from going to the police, but she did talk to the press, and kept talking, beginning in 2004. 
 
Yet it wasn’t until a decade later that the rumors went viral.  The turning point came in the summer of 2015, when a New York magazine cover featured 35 women who accused Cosby of sexual assault. 
 
Around this time, colleges started rescinding the degrees and memberships they had given Cosby over the years.  But it wasn’t until the guilty verdict that the biggest guns did the same. These institutions included Yale University; the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (which announced that Cosby’s reprehensible criminal actions completely overshadowed his remarkable career).
 
This is all terrific news.  And, I expect that after Cosby’s sentencing in the fall—which could land the 81-year-old up to 30 years in prison—more organizations will do the same.
 
Still, I felt an overwhelming desire to do something myself.
 
I spent a lot of years living and working in Hollywood, so it hit me: even now, Bill Cosby has a star on the Walk of Fame.  Embedded in the sidewalks of 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street, the more than 2,600 stars are public monuments to achievement in the entertainment industry.  Those who live in the area might find the walk a bit hokey, but an astounding 10 million tourists visit it every year.  Many are families with young children.
 
Of course, some of the entertainers here are far from perfect.  Clark Gable may or may not have been involved in a fatal hit-and-run car accident; Charles Chaplin loved teenage girls (and married them), and Humphrey Bogart cheated on Lauren Bacall with his hairdresser. 
 
But Bill Cosby’s crimes—unchecked for so long, and involving so many victims—go way, way beyond the pale. 
 
Perhaps after seeing this petition, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce (which manages the walk) will decide that it’s time to change its rule that even when there are rumors of misconduct, no one’s star can ever be removed.
 
But, the charges against Bill Cosby have now been proven in a court of law. 
 
The time has come to Do the Right Thing.   
 
I hope you’ll sign my petition.  Then, I hope you’ll pass it on. 
 
https://www.change.org/p/the-hollywood-chamber-of-commerce-remove-bill-cosby-star-now-from-the-hollywood-walk-of-fame
  

​When I make my spaghetti, all is right with the world.
 
I started refining the dish decades ago, after my mother wrote it down on a now stained and much used index card. 
 
But like most folks who are comfortable in an apron, her recipe was more of a suggestion than an instruction.  So, I’ve experimented and finessed with the ingredients and assemblage for a long time, which also means that the sauce is a little different every time.
 
Like many housewives of the 1950s on a budget, my mother’s recipe was both simple and cheap. 
 
The basic ingredients were a pound or so of hamburger, celery and an onion; tomato sauce and tomato paste, and some  green bell pepper (but only if there was some left over in the frig).  Water was added, along with a bit of cut up pepperoni, table salt and pepper, and dried spices (I knew nothing about fresh herbs until I was an adult). 
 
The sauce was spooned over whatever spaghetti noodles—pasta was a word no one had ever heard of—on sale.  And
given the times, it was topped with the only parmesan cheese any of us knew about, powdered and in a green
cardboard container.   
 
​It was delicious.
 
My jollying up begins with the meat.  I use ground chuck because it has a sweeter profile than plain hamburger meat, as well as more fat. I also buy three quarters of a pound of not-in-casing Italian sausage because that’s what The Hubster likes.  But sometimes I’ll substitute pepperoni, cut in thin nickel shapes, just as my mom liked to do.  However, I add more than she did, up to one heaping cup.
 
My mom only used one pot, which is where I make my initial big turn.
 
I do brown the chuck and sausage with a tiny bit of olive oil (if using pepperoni, that’s added later) in her Dutch oven. But once that’s going, I heat a large frying pan with more olive oil.  Setting the burner to medium, I’ll sauté one large chopped yellow onion, an entire chopped green bell pepper, three coarsely chopped stalks of celery, and 10 sliced, fresh mushrooms, all sprinkled with a bit of kosher salt.  I won’t completely cook this, so the flame goes off after five minutes.   

At this time, preheat the oven at 375 degrees, because another ingredient will go into the Dutch oven soon.   
 
Once the meat has cooked, the veggie mix and its juices are poured in. Then I’ll add a 15 ounce can of good tomato sauce and a six ounce can of tomato paste (I like Contadina).  Next I’ll fill the empty tomato sauce can with water, then put that water in the pot.  I’ll do this two more times, then add one small can of chopped black olives and if using pepperoni, that as well.  Stir completely while bringing the mixture to a slow boil. 
 
The oven should be up to temperature by now, so it’s time for roasted garlic.
 
Take one large garlic bulb and with a serrated knife, cut off the top, and even a little of the sides, to ensure that all of the cloves are showing a bit.  Place the bulb top up in tin foil with a bay leaf and a bit of olive oil, wrap well and put in the oven for 40 minutes or so.    
 
Once the sauce comes to a boil, turn the heat down so it’s barely bubbling.  Now is also the time to add fresh herbs: two heaping tablespoons each of chopped basil and oregano, and a little kosher salt.  Let it cook for about 45 minutes, then take the garlic bulb out to cool. 
 
Next, I add an ingredient that sounds odd, but works—a heaping tablespoon of honey.  It won’t make the sauce sweet, but does takes away any taste of acidity.  Squeezing the cooked garlic cloves into the pot also happens now.
 
Keep simmering for a few hours, making sure to stir and add water as needed.  It’s a good time for more salt to taste, too.  I’m also grating some fresh parmesan cheese about now. 
 
Once the sauce has bubbled for two and half hours, make your pasta. The Hubster and I like thin spaghetti cooked al dente.  My mom always poured cold water over the done pasta, but I won’t do this step because the sauce sticks much better without it.    
 
Five minutes before serving, I turn the burner off the pot and let it sit.  Then I put sauce and pasta together in a family style bowl.  But I always place the pot of sauce on the table, too, because some folks like extra.  The parmesan cheese sits next to both.
 
This sauce isn’t nearly as cost effective as my mom’s.  But it can be made for about $15—with plenty left over for another meal or a few lunches.  In fact, this recipe tastes even better the second and third time around. 
 
Someday, I hope my daughter will want to learn how to make my spaghetti.  
 
I can’t know how it will taste.
 
But I do know that a lot of room for improvisation—as it was for my mom and me—will be encouraged.     

I’m one degree of separation from Stormy Daniels.
 
How can this be?  
 
I live in a sleepy beach town hundreds of miles from Los Angeles.  I’m not involved with triple XXX rated
films, and I absolutely don’t compete in fancy pants horse shows.  (Until about eight weeks ago, Daniels had
managed to seamlessly blend these two disparate lives—the former in California, the latter in Texas—together.)  
 
Also, I’d never heard of Daniels’ uber-confident attorney Michael Avenatti, who’s as comfortable in a television
studio as in a courtroom.  And, he does a lot more than represent celebrities: last year, Avenatti was a lead attorney
in a high-profile lawsuit against Kimberly-Clark, and scored a whopping $454 million verdict for his clients.  
  
But I am friends with Lois Gibson.
 
For those not up on news of the day, Gibson is a seasoned forensic artist whose work is so remarkable that she has been listed for years in Guinness World Records as The World’s Most Successful Forensic Artist.  Indeed, Gibson’s drawings have helped catch more than 1,250 perps—and counting.
 
Unlike cop sketchers of yesteryear, who instructed shell-shocked victims to pick out chins, noses and other facial features from a book, then superimposed those characteristics onto a blank face, Gibson goes deeper.  
 
With her portable easel and a bright light shining above that stand, Gibson takes about an hour to complete one sketch, working with charcoals, pastels and chalk.  She also uses the same kind of durable paper that sidewalk artists prefer because it holds a lot of color, and can handle a lot of erasure marks, all without fading. 
 
But Gibson’s methods are mostly different because of her interview style.
 
Somehow, she is able to gently draw victims out, getting them to relive their horrific experiences in a safe place.  Maybe it’s because Gibson, too, has been a crime victim (in her 20s, she was assaulted by a stranger), so understands how to communicate with those she interviews. 
 
“I know how to unblock memories,” Gibson once told me.  “You’ve got to be really nice and happy and make the victim laugh.  I’m really good at that.  I make them feel better.  I tell them to relax.  It’s hypnosis without labeling it that.”  In addition, Gibson is hyper-aware of unspoken boundaries—it’s why she puts her easel between herself and the victim, and also makes sure she sits at least an arm’s distance away.
   
Last month, Gibson sketched the face of the man whom Stormy Daniels said threatened her in Las Vegas seven years ago.  The chilling incident occurred in broad daylight; Daniels’ baby daughter was strapped in her car seat a few feet away.  The reward to catch the thug stands at $131,000, and may go up.  
 
I knew nothing about Gibson and Daniels working together until Michael Avenatti posted a photo on Twitter.  In the picture, Gibson is at her easel, the light above the drawing, and Daniels (who Gibson calls Stephanie Clifford, Daniels’ legal name) is facing her. 
 
I sat up straight, then did a double-take in front of my laptop. 
 
“Wait, wait, WAIT,”  I said out loud. “That’s Lois.  I know her.  She’s my friend—and she’s with Stormy Daniels.” 
 
We met about 20 years ago, when I had another life in Southern California. 
 
I was a producer for the TV show Unsolved Mysteries, and one of my jobs was finding stories.  Facebook and Twitter didn’t exist and Google was just a few years old.  So I got leads by combing through reams of letters from viewers; nurturing my cop and reporter contacts, and reading true crime stories.  One day, I saw an article about Gibson, and cold called her. 
 
We worked for months on a segment, then became friends.  We even vacationed together on the Gulf Coast near Galveston, Gibson with her teenage daughter and me with my four-year-old. She did a pencil portrait of my daughter then, and I framed it.    
 
I’m hoping that Gibson’s sketch will be the lynchpin that nabs the man who threatened Daniels. 
 
Numbers don’t lie, and given Gibson’s astonishing record, I predict an arrest sooner than later.  For those wondering why Gibson hasn’t publicly talked about the drawing, she recently posted that expressing political views on social media is not conducive to her mental health, and as a forensic artist, “I guard my mental health.”  
 
But Gibson is passionate when it comes to promoting her profession.  To this end, she has done many other television interviews about her work, and also teaches a college level course for those interested in embarking on the same career.  
Gibson believes, as I do, that she has been given a special gift to catch, and help put away, the monsters of the world. 
 
I am honored to call her my friend.       

I’ve been transplanting succulents. 
 
To be more precise, cuttings of ice plant—a ground cover so resilient that it’s used to landscape nearly every freeway in Southern California. 
 
And, thanks to all of this digging and watering and messing around in the dirt, I now understand why millions of people are hooked on gardening.    
 
First, though, it’s important to note that working the land, no matter how minor, isn’t my thing.  I’d rather binge watch an HBO series; bake a carrot cake, or check out a thrift store. 
 
I’m doing this project because it’s necessary.
 
It began with a wild rose bush that had grown so bushy and unwieldy that it had to be extricated from the long fence which separates my back yard from the street.  Some wood in the fence also needed replacing, so a few new boards and a few coats of stain were also part of the sprucing up.  The folks I hired got rid of the thorny tangle of shrubbery, and fixed the fence, too.  They did a great job.  But to do so, they took out several feet of ice plant.  
 
What was left behind was a large expanse of barren, mostly sandy soil.  And, thanks to the wonderful rains we’ve been having, the latter needed to be filled in to prevent mini-mudslides cascading into the street. 
 
Given that there’s already a blanket of ice plant in the area a few feet below the fence, sticking in new cuttings from this existing field was the best way to keep this from happening.   
 
I figured that I’d need a few dozen of these nearly-impossible-to-kill plants to complete the task. 
 
But as my work progressed, I saw that at least 100 of these babies were going to be needed to completely fill in the area.  Because I also know that this can’t be done in a day, or let’s face it, even in a month, I’m taking it 15 or so cuttings at a time.
 
The job begins with snipping the tops off of established ice plants, then putting those fat and strong stems in a couple of vases. After I’ve looked at them for a few days, I decide that it’s time to give them the dirt they deserve. 
 
So I fill our big plastic watering can; grab a rusty spade, and head to the sand. I dig one hole for each stem, and pour water into the empty space.  Next I place the cutting in the opening, making sure to gently cover and pat the area around it with the dirt I’ve just dug up.  Finally, I water again—in theory, this ensures that every baby ice plant is off to a great start.
 
I’ve transplanted about 50 cuttings so far, and since all are doing well, I guess I’m doing something right.  And, it makes me smile to see these positive results immediately. That’s something that never happens after turning in an article to a picky editor, or researching a true crime story for a TV show that won’t air until months later. 
 
Besides getting extra exercise and sunlight, there are other unexpected advantages to digging in the dirt—and they’re significant ones.     
 
A 2010 Dutch study found that those who spent a half hour gardening were happier than the control group that read books inside for the same amount of time.  More important, these gardening folks had measurably lower cortisol levels: the hormone that, when elevated, has been linked to learning disabilities, heart disease and obesity. 
 
Other studies have concluded that regular gardening cuts the risk of heart attack and stroke; strengthens dexterity, and might improve our immune system.   
 
For me, the most important surprise is the research associated with the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease.  (My father died from this literally mind numbing illness, meaning I could be susceptible to it as well.  So, anything that can hasten or even halt this horrible affliction holds my interest.) 
 
A particular study that caught my eye was a long term one that tracked the lifestyles of about 3,000 seniors over the course of 16 years.  After analyzing the data, scientists concluded that daily gardening was the single largest risk reduction for dementia. More precisely, research here indicated that gardening every day cut the incidence of Alzheimer’s by 36 percent.  Another study found the number to be an astounding 47 percent. 
 
Thinking about it, this makes a lot of sense since gardening involves so many brain functions, including problem solving, learning and dexterity.
 
Baking a cake can wait.  I’m going outside, into the dirt.      

Long before hundreds of television channels, cheap air fares and the Internet, there was the View-Master.
 
A modern version of a stereoscope (a device first invented in the 1800s, it was used to look at early photos in 3D), this particular model was marketed to post World War II baby boomers, and their parents, as a way to see the wonders of the world without ever leaving home.
 
And, in the years before the phrase “educational toy” existed, it was that as well. 
 
Like millions of other 1950s households, we had a View-Master.
 
Dark brown and made of Bakelite, the device was lightweight; resembled a Brownie camera, and was nearly impossible to break.  Clicking its single lever down with my thumb, I spent many afternoons peering at the dozens of View-Master “reels” (actually, cardboard discs inserted into the top of the viewer, one at a time, which then rotated with each click) in our collection.   
 
Each disc had a set of 14 slides, all in life-like 3D. The colors were also spectacular because each picture had been shot with Kodachrome. Sometimes a disc told a story from beginning to end, like a Woody Woodpecker cartoon. More often, they were touristy images of exciting and exotic places—Natural Habitats of Africa; The Oregon Caves, and Garden Isle of Hawaii.   
 
I recently discovered our View-Master in my garage.   There were also 35 reels, most with a date of 1955, and each one was still carefully tucked in its own blue and white envelope.  Everything was manufactured by Sawyer’s of Portland, Oregon, whose owners introduced their creation at the 1939 World Fair in New York City, and patented the device that year. 
 
I’d forgotten that I’d found the same box before, in another garage at another house.  I wasn’t ready to give it up then.  This toy had been an important part of my childhood: it gave me the fuel that let me dream about corners of the world that I knew our family could never afford to see in person.
 
I’ve done a good bit of traveling since my little girl self sat in a cramped living room, enthralled with our View-Master. 
 
Journeys have included crisscrossing the country as a professional circus clown, which included driving to every gig in my Datsun 710 sedan.  In the rear seat directly behind me were my costumes, makeup and props.  Next to me, the front passenger seat had been torn out to make room for a long plywood board and air mattress.  In this way, the car doubled as my bed, and after I made curtains for the windows, it wasn’t half bad.   
 
There have been other far-flung escapades.  I can still recall strolling down the greenest of hills in Switzerland, right next to cows wearing leather collars with bells on them, clanging with every step they took.  I’ve seen old-fashioned windmills turning in The Netherlands, and gazed up at Mount Fuji in Japan.  I brought my tiny baby girl home from China, and spent time in the former Republic of Georgia making a documentary film.  This past February, I went to Lake Atitlan in Guatemala, one of the most beautiful bodies of water on the planet.   
 
Each of these adventures has given me a perspective on the world that has helped shape me into the curious and questioning reporter that I am today.
 
But now, it’s time to pack up the View-Master and the reels.   
 
They’ll be in good hands, going to a friend on the East Coast who collects vintage toys.  As it turns out, he hasn’t been to nearly as many places as I’ve been lucky enough to see. 
 
But maybe the View-Master will change that.    

​I miss cafeterias.
 
I don’t mean the ones in school lunchrooms, but those that used to be in just about every city across America in the 1950s and ‘60s.
 
I loved the food, of course.  But the next best thing was how I got the food—pointing to exactly what I wanted, with each choice then handed to me by a female worker (never a man) wearing a starched white uniform with sensible shoes. 

​The line itself was both precise and artistic.  
. 
After grabbing a tray, the first stop was looking at the tiny white bowls of salads, all propped up on a narrow island of crushed ice.  Should I get coleslaw, or cottage cheese with a maraschino cherry on top, or sliced peaches?  Usually, I’d pick my favorite—strawberry Jell-O cut in identical, sparkly cubes. 
 
Under heat lamps and in the center of the line were the entrees.  There was chicken pot pie, and roasted turkeys
and hams and roasts, all carved to order.  Alongside were steam tables, with sides including mashed potatoes,
fresh succotash and brown gravy.  Next came baked-that-day bread and rolls, and then, on a second bed of shaved
ice, juices and milk. After that were desserts—featuring tapioca and rice puddings topped with whipped cream,
and displayed in crystal cut glass parfait dishes.  Sitting alongside those were from-scratch slices of fruit pie,
and chocolate and vanilla cake, too.     
 
The last stop was the cashier’s station.  Here, my entire meal cost, at most, a few dollars.     
 
Where I grew up—in Long Beach, a coastal city about 25 miles from Los Angeles—not one of these places was part
of a chain. 
 
Instead, they were owned and managed by local families, and had names like Riley’s, Arnold’s, Crown and Royal.  Because they were not only cost efficient, but big and well-lit and noisy, lots of families ate there, too, giving off an ambiance of good cheer and wholesomeness.  
 
One exception was a small chain called Clifton’s, which in its heyday had eight locations.
 
The most famous of these was Brookdale, opened in 1935 in downtown Los Angeles.  The food was also great, and with a kitschy redwood forest theme, it was also the largest cafeteria in the world.  Here, guests could sit near a working waterfall that meandered through the entire dining area; animated toy raccoons and a giant stuffed bear holding a fishing pole sat on custom built perches above them.  During the Great Depression, and even later, customers who couldn’t afford a meal could eat at any Clifton's for free.   
 
With their homey food choices, lots of folks think that cafeterias took off in the Midwest. 

But California is where the cafeteria craze began.
 
It started in 1905, when a woman named Helen Mosher opened a small restaurant where customers selected their food at a long counter, and then carried their trays to a table.  She called her place the Cafeteria (the same name as a smorgasbord restaurant that had opened a decade earlier in Chicago); by the 1920s, there were so many similar establishments in Southern California that one writer dubbed Los Angeles “Sunny Cafeteria.”   
 
Brisk and breezy, they were marketed as the new and modern way to dine, a place where customers could choose as much, or as little, food as they wanted. And because the food sold on its looks, it was designed to be appealing.
 
As a kid, I never imagined that cafeterias might vanish by the time I became an adult.
 
In the last four decades, fast food conglomerates—big on advertising and cheap ingredients, small on fresh and healthy choices—have supplanted the mom and pop places that I had once taken for granted.  
 
Indeed, the cafeterias of today only provide food where people go to eat because they have to—schools, hospitals and prisons.   At best, the choices are bland and unappealing; at worst, they’re tasteless and made edible only because most of the food is packed with sodium and sugar.
 
I don’t know if the cafeterias I loved will ever come back.  
 
But I do know that I’ll never stop missing them.
  

Our dogs sleep with us.  Or rather, we sleep with our dogs.
 
Given that neither is teacup size—Sadie is 105 pounds and Hank is 75—this arrangement has its negatives.
 
For starters, our mattress is queen size, and like our dogs, neither The Hubster nor I are small. 
 
Sadie warms my side of the bed before I turn in.  But she always moves when I ask, settling in her big brown dog bed next to my nightstand.
 
Still, being a shepherd and The Hubster’s dog, Sadie wakes every few hours to nudge his arm or breathe on his face to make sure he’s okay.  And she doesn’t like anything getting too close to either of us.  That means barking when there are raccoons and possums and skunks outside, which has been known to happen every night for a full week.  She’s an early riser, too, typically 5 a.m., which is when I’m in my deepest sleep. 
 
Hank likes to jump on after we’ve settled in.  After licking my face, he settles into his sweet spot—on top of, or wrapped around, The Hubster’s legs.  He’s a happy hound who had a great puppy experience: not being separated from his mother too soon; daily runs through a vegetable garden, and cuddles by friends of the couple who fostered him.  Also, he was the only male in the litter, definitely an alpha dude, so it’s not his way to give up space.
 
Why do we put up with this? 
 
Because there are way more positives.
 
Most important, Hank and Sadie are family.  
 
With that in mind, we’re serious about pet ownership.  Our guys don’t wear plaid jackets or ribbons on their collars, but they eat premium food; have lots of space to run, and chew on soup bones (no splinters).   Of course, there are hugs and kisses and brushing and on-time visits to the vet.
 
And now, a new study has concluded what we people who sleep with dogs have long suspected.
 
Folks who take their dogs to bed with them feel more contented, secure and loved.    
 
The study was done at the Mayo Clinic and surveyed 40 adults, mostly women with an average age of 44 years old.  Each participant had one dog, and none had sleep disorders.   The findings in this research backed up an earlier Mayo study, which surveyed 150 patients, and concluded that sleeping with one’s dog makes for a better night’s sleep.
 
However, there’s a catch.
 
While all of these pet owners had their dogs in the bedroom with them, none of the animals slept on a bed. For those of us whose canines sleep next to us, researchers found that a good night’s rest is hard to come by—especially if the pet is large and stubborn like Hank.
 
We love our sleep, but we love Hank and Sadie more.  So for us, there’s only one option.  
 
Save up for a king size bed.   
 
 

I grew up without a car.
 
This isn't a big deal if you’re from New York City or Boston, or even San Francisco.  Actually, I have friends who don’t drive because they live in places where owning a vehicle is more bother than necessity.
 
I’m a native of Southern California.
 
So, for folks like me—baby boomers in Los Angeles in the 1960s—a car was essential.    
 
Getting to Disneyland or Knott’s Berry Farm or Universal Studios was nearly impossible without a car.  You also couldn’t go to Malibu or Zuma, where those glorious beach party movies were filmed.  On a mundane note, taking mass transit to my orthodontist for an early morning appointment, or arriving at Sunday school on time, was out of the question.  And movies were the worst; we went on weekends, when buses ran only once an hour.  This meant is that we always arrived at the theatre 20 minutes after the film had started.        
 
My brother and I were told there wasn’t money for a car.
 
I accepted this fact when I was small.  
 
As I grew, though, I saw that every kid in our working class neighborhood had at least one car in his driveway, and at least one parent who drove.  Sure, these vehicles were older than what we saw on television, and had more dents, but at least the families who had them didn’t have to take the bus everywhere.
 
Later, I learned that years before I was born, my father had attempted to drive. 
 
This was back in the day when there were tricky gear shifts and clutches and chokes.  The family story is that after my dad crashed into a mailbox, he was done trying.  My mother never wanted to drive, so our carless fate was sealed.   
 
Thus, and in A Very Large Way, our lives revolved around buses.
 
Indeed, I think one big reason my parents bought the house we lived in was because it was half a block from a city bus stop.  The route here also stopped in front of my father’s workplace; another bus would take us downtown to shop.  In high school, a yellow school bus picked us up at the same corner.
 
When a bus couldn’t get us to our destination, my mother got creative. 
 
A family friend on his way to work dropped us off at the orthodontist; from there, we could catch a city bus to school.  My mother did grocery shopping with a neighbor; once a week, she’d climb into the woman’s station wagon, armed with coupons and ads, and buy enough food to last us until the next trip.  Another acquaintance had a son who attended synagogue with us, so she would provide our way there. 
 
By the time I was a senior in high school, I was determined to master driving.
 
But probably because my parents didn’t know how to drive, getting behind the wheel didn’t come easily.
 
An uncle gave me my first lessons in a car with a stick shift.  That ended when I couldn’t figure out how to steer, and nearly careened onto a front yard lawn.  I also braked too hard; didn’t always look in the mirrors I was supposed to look in, and couldn’t change lanes smoothly.   I failed my first driving test.  But after more lessons from my best friend’s father, I passed on the second try.
 
It was then that my parents bought their first car, a sensible copper-colored compact.  It was just for me, and they allowed me to take it to school, or to use it to run errands for them. 
 
After that car died, a cousin gave me his, which I used to travel across the country in when I was a circus clown.  And then I bought another, and then another.  Except for the years I lived in New York City, I have always had wheels.   
 
I like to think that having to take a bus nearly everywhere in car-crazy Los Angeles left no scars.
 
But it did.
 
I began encouraging my daughter to drive a full year before she decided she was confident enough to learn.  I get to movies at least 15 minutes early.  I always get the oil changed on time, because I never want my car to break down.  When it is in the shop for more than one day, I’ve made sure, well in advance, that The Hubster or a handful of neighbors will help me get around. 
 
And occasionally, whenever I see a child or an older woman at a bus stop, alone and looking worried, I give them a ride.  
 
 
​

February has lots of celebrations.
 
There’s St. Valentine’s Day and Presidents' Day, of course, and this year, the Super Bowl was on the first Sunday of
the month.  February is also Black History Month, as well as Canned Fruit Month, Great American Pie Month and even
An Affair to Remember Month.
 
But for me, this time in the calendar means a special anniversary.
 
Girl Clown Dancing is three years old. 
 
Broken down, that’s another 25 (or so) essays on a bounty of topics, some harder to write than others.  No matter
what the subject, this blog provides not only a space to say what I want to say; it's also a forum for polishing
my writing.   And, too, GCD is a venue for readers to voice their opinions; tell their stories, and sometimes, join a
like-minded community. 
 
I’m a journalist, not a memoirist, so essays almost always include facts and figures and news. Thus, while not meant to convince readers to agree with my opinion, many of the posts have information that some may not have known about prior to reading the post.
 
Stories this last year include seeing our flag at half-mast (https://hilaryrobertsgrant.weebly.com/blog/half-mast); global warming in the beach town where I live (https://hilaryrobertsgrant.weebly.com/blog/heat), and buying groceries for strangers (https://hilaryrobertsgrant.weebly.com/blog/my-grocery-store-challenge).  Also, The Teenage Daughter moved away, so I wrote about becoming an empty nester (https://hilaryrobertsgrant.weebly.com/blog/empty-nest).
 
Serious topics were addressed, too.
 
These included sexual harassment in my own back yard (https://hilaryrobertsgrant.weebly.com/blog/terms-of-endearment); an obituary for a hometown hero I wish I had had the chance to meet (https://hilaryrobertsgrant.weebly.com/blog/a-requiem), and what the future might hold for entry level workers (https://hilaryrobertsgrant.weebly.com/blog/working).   
 
This year, my promise to you is to keep writing. 

Every now and then, a mistake can turn into magic.    
 
Chocolate chip cookie aficionados, for instance, probably know that dietician and food lecturer Ruth Wakefield invented the famous dessert by accident.  Intending to whip up a batch of chocolate butter drop cookies, she was out of baker’s chocolate, so chopped up some semi-sweet chocolate to take its place.  But instead of the chocolate dispersing throughout the cookie, the pieces retained their original form—and voila, the world’s first Toll House cookie was born. 
 
On a way more somber note, Scottish lab technician Alexander Fleming returned from a two-week vacation to find an odd fluffy mold growing on a culture plate of bacteria.  Closer inspection of the mystery glob showed that it was preventing the growth of the bacteria, and thus, life-saving penicillin was born.   Other accidents have led to the creation of Bakelite; the microwave oven, and even Slinky, perhaps the most popular baby boomer toy ever.
 
I’d never personally experienced this sort of alchemy—until last month.
 
That’s when I saw a Facebook post about a women-only writing retreat in Guatemala. 
 
Taking place on the shores of Lake Atitlan (thought to be one of the most beautiful and pristine bodies of water in the world, it’s surrounded by Mayan villages, three volcanoes and lush jungle-covered mountains), the workshop would be run by Joyce Maynard, one of my longtime favorite writers.  Maynard is almost exactly a year older than me, and her terrific memoir essays are regularly seen in The New York Times.  And, oh yeah, she has also penned a slew of NYT best-selling books, both fiction and nonfiction. 
 
Maynard has been conducting this annual workshop—under 20 participants at a time—for nearly two decades, so I knew it would not only be well organized, but amazing.  It was also very expensive.   
 
This year, though, the workshop announcement had a new caveat.
 
Thanks to an anonymous donor, Maynard was offering two partial scholarships to two women over the age of 40, making it possible for others who might not have the financial resources to take part.  So, quickly and before I lost my nerve,
I sent in the required letter about myself, and a sample of my writing (thanks to Girl Clown Dancing, there were a lot
of choices).
 
Two days later, I re-read the post—and found I’d made a really big mistake.
 
To get a cross-section of ages, the scholarships were only being offered to women under 40 years old, not the opposite.
 
I posted back that I was terribly sorry for the error, and that perhaps another time, Maynard would consider offering funding to folks in my age category.  She wrote right back, replying she was sorry she had disappointed me, and hoped that I understood her reasoning. I told her that of course I did (and, I did), and once again, apologized for my error. 
 
Then, a few days later, Maynard’s assistant called.
 
Some other funding had been found, not as much as the other scholarships, but enough to pay my travel costs and lodging.  Was I interested in going?
 
Uh--yes.
 
At this writing, my airfare has been booked, and being the researcher I am, I’ve also printed out articles about the charming village of San Marcos La Laguna, where the retreat will take place.  Maynard has provided a great packing list, too, along with many other travel tips and the workshop schedule, which will run for a full and glorious nine days. 
 
In order to be considered, I also had to pen an original memoir essay, which will be workshopped by Maynard.  (So did every other participant; I’m looking forward to sitting in while those are also critiqued.) And there’s more: the opportunity to take yoga classes; get a massage or two, eat native dishes, and of course, go shopping (I'm especially looking forward to visiting the women's cooperative weaving store). 
 
Even though I’ve been around the world, I’m an anxious traveler.  But in the last week or so, that initial nervousness is starting to be replaced by a giddy excitement.  In fact, my gut tells me that this journey promises to rank right up there with a few other major life-changing ones--traveling to China to bring my daughter home, and filming BOTSO, my documentary film, in and around Tbilisi, in the Republic of Georgia. 
 
And as a friend says, when you can, always take the plunge.
 
My plane departs in a few days.
 
To the lake, I go!
 
Have you ever been to a retreat?  Or, what are your favorite travel memories?  I look forward to your comments
and stories! 
 
P.S.  Just in time for this year’s retreat, Joyce Maynard has written a terrific Facebook post on how the workshop—and her love for Guatemala—came to be.  www.facebook.com/joyce.maynard.14/posts/10156938100718056