Language

I have to thank my parents for insisting that I take Latin as my foreign language  when I was a freshman in high school. I didn’t realize how much it would help me. Honestly, two years of Latin and two years of Spanish  helped my music  skills, crossword skills,and travel skills.

I loved traveling in Italy. Italian is such a beautiful language. We lived with my grandparents in South Philadelphia for a couple of years after I was born. Later my grandparents came to live with us and often spoke Italian to each other. The few words I remember are related to the kitchen, cooking implements, food and counting.

This is not me!

I should also mention that I learned an occasional curse!

When we traveled in Italy with my mom and dad, we were pretty lucky because they could actually ask for directions and know where to go.  We took a crash course in Italian offered by our local adult education school. I found that I read the language much better than I could speak it. I loved the word Uscita. It means exit. I never learned this kind of Italian, thank God!

Late

35 years ago I was waiting expectantly for the birth of our first and, may I add, only child. This was the day set by the doctor when he ciphered out the due date. As it turned out, our son was three days late. It wasn’t a big deal. First children are often late.

Had he been born today, he would have shared a birthday with people like Wilbur Wright, Charlie Chaplin, Peter Ustinov, Henry Mancini, Herbie, Mann, Dusty Springfield Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Martin Lawrence.

On Saturday, he’ll be 34 which alternately freaks me out and excites me. It seems like just yesterday – oh whatever – you totally get it, right?

So he shares the day with TIm Curry, Paloma Picasso, Jayne Mansfield, Dudley Moore, Al Unser Jr., Ashley Judd, Hayden Christensen and Maria Sharapova.

I have a recurring dream that I’m in school, its the end of the semester and I’m late for an exam – an exam for a class that I’ve never attended. I can’t even find the classroom.

I’m not sure what this means but I’m glad I have a 34 year old son – even though that can’t possibly be the right age?