Newly arrived, smell of plastic, terrible mugshot from the drug store, but no matter: this is do anything, go anywhere, be whoever I like by myself, no restrictions, freedom to roam.  This is heady stuff.  Setting out soon.  Wish me safe passage.  SH

Happy, but bittersweet.  Two months before my due date, I decided I was done with the whole womb thing--was nearly born in the parking lot of the Porky Pig Bar-B-Que in Riverdale, Maryland... Mom, waiting in the car for Dad to get the carryout, flagged down a patron, described my father, and told him to get the message that he needed to hurry it up. In the waiting room, the unhelpful nurses told my mother to cross her legs to keep me from popping out, but I was pretty serious about the whole thing.  Forty-five minutes after the contractions started, I was sounding my barbaric yawp to the world... Hope I have another half dozen decades of yawping.