Burnt Chocolate Stories

Sisters Sandy and Ellie, Babsie (me, 10 yrs old) with Grandma Becky The first time I fell in love, it was with two boys at the same time. I loved their chubby hands, the way they bounced on my back, stuck their fingers in my ears and blew raspberries in my face. Sixteen-month old twins Todd and Larry Klein were irresistible to me. At the age of ten I was the older woman in their lives. I remember running home after school, throwing my books into my room and tearing into my jeans with such speed that by the time I knocked on Mrs. Klein’s door, beads of sweat covered my forehead. She answered the door looking like a cross between Beulah witch and Gretel, wide-eyed and sleepy. I could hear Todd and Larry banging on the wall and knew they were chomping the wooden slats of their cribs between shrieks. It wasn’t long before I was spending every afternoon in the Klein’s apartment. In 1952 no one needed locked gates at the entrance to anything and parking spaces were plentiful. We lived acr...

I love the series of ads Dennis Hopper does on TV about retirement, when he holds up his fist and says, “You need a plan!” I think to myself, “Right!” and then continue on just the way I always have, meandering now into the distant edge and beyond of middle age. My mother lived to be 87 which means, if I follow her lead, I’ve only got 21 years left. When I think about that, a kind of anxiety sets in that rattles me. Not that I have a huge plan because I’ve no major goal other than to write an incredibly insightful book that the world applauds. But that doesn’t keep me working like a fiend which is what needs to happen if I’m ever going to get the thing finished. No, I work at a leisurely pace as if I’ve got nothing but time. I’ve added pounds, wrinkles, gray hair, but if you ask me how I feel, not all that different. In fact, I expected by now to have more of the answers to life’s secrets. Instead I find myself still struggling to make sense of an elusive world that becomes more, rat...