Sidetracked Charley

There was a television show of the same era as the original Twilight Zone I used to watch. The basic theme was an event in each episode which changed drastically the direction of the characters and the plot. I became obsessed with defining those events in my past. I had some big ones. There was my mother's breast cancer, the art teacher coming after me with mat knife and then inviting me into he storage room for me to apologize, and being struck by a skier while teaching. But not all turning points in our life are so clearly defined. Sometimes we continue on our planned route without realizing we must have taken a turn because this is not where we thought we would be. As my sister would say in our off road adventures, "Not lost but just unsure of how to get back to where we started." To which I would ask, "Is that what we want to do? Go back?" It rarely was. We sort of enjoyed going beyond the limits of the GPS. Note: in the mountain west that is easier ...

Aftermath of Ruskin Heights Tornado May 20, 1957 We were settled into Albuquerque by then. It was just beginning to dawn on me we were not moving anytime soon. All my aunts and uncles (but one), my father's mother and stepfather, and those cousins I knew were still in the Kansas City area. My baby sister still very much a baby. There were three networks on TV. One was not CNN. There was no 24/7 news coverage. NBC, CBS and ABC had sign off times and sign on times with test patterns. And between test patterns just snow. Mother found me in front of the test pattern that May 21st, 1957 when she woke up to get the day going for the family. "Turn that off," she said handing me my baby sister nodding off in my arms. "Help me with breakfast. What are you watching that for anyway." "I am waiting for the news," I said, as I put my sister down in the play pen. I had just that year, as part of social studies, developed an interest in the news. We...