CHAPTER 1

Glimpses of Childhood:MEETING MY INNER JUNKIE

In my childhood home on Cole Street, a crawl spaceconnected the two upstairs bedrooms. On one side wasthe room I shared with my big sister; on the other was mybrother's room, which became mine several years later whenhe left for college. To a five-year-old, the crawl space wasa long, dark tunnel of cobwebs, where ghouls and goblinshovered, shifting incessantly from one doorway to the otherthroughout the night, primed for entry, raring to frightenlittle girls. Much to my amazement, just a couple of shortyears later, I bravely smushed the cobwebs with a wet papertowel and took rights of ownership with very little fear. Nowit was my long, dark tunnel of stillness and secrecy.

In that quiet little space, I set up camp, stocking it withpillows and blankets and puzzles and coloring books anddoodads worthy of hours of undetected solitary play. I wrotepoems and made up jokes for my stuffed animals' amusement.It seems I may have interacted with an invisible playmate,but I recognize her now as my inner junkie.

During the late-afternoon hours between school and dinner,we crept in and out of our tiny clubhouse every so often,as the stale air required. I had to scootch out carefully so asnot to hit my head on the slanted ceiling where the eavescame together with the wall. I made clandestine trips tothe kitchen for snacks. We pigged out on stacks of grahamcrackers smeared with soft, sweet butter and creamy peanutbutter, served on a china saucer with a fancy silver knife. Inretrospect, that seems astonishingly grown-up and civilizedfor a seven-year-old. Perhaps I thought it gave my littletunnel an elegant refinement, making the act of sneakingsnacks seem less egregious.

Weeks of covert operations later, my mother discovered myhideout in a most distressing manner. My snacks had drawnants. Thankfully, I was not there at the time she traced themto my private oasis, where she found a streaming parade ofthose industrious little critters crawling on and around herchina and silver pieces. To this day, I'm not sure whether Iwas reprimanded for hiding, snacking, or using the goodchina. I suspect it was mostly about the ants, but to my bustedlittle heart it was a trifecta of offenses for which I carriedheaps of guilt for days.

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My parents both worked full-time. In those days, there werefew working mothers; all the mothers within at least a ten-blockradius (your whole world as a child) were stay-at-homemoms. In fact, the term "stay-at-home mom" didn't existyet, since working mothers were the exception. When shewasn't sick, my mom was a brilliant whirling dervish ofenergy who wanted the finer things in life for her family offive. My parents' teacher's salaries didn't make us rich, by anymeans. But we wanted for little and had a lot of things manyother families did not.

One of our luxury items was a storage freezer. It was thesize and shape of a refrigerator, but it sat horizontally, andeverything in it was rock hard. When you opened the lid, arush of frozen air swirled around like puffs of clouds abovethe food. Sometimes you'd have to fan the mist away beforeyou could determine what was inside. My parents werethrilled at the money they saved by buying and storing largequantities of meat bought in bulk directly from the butcher.He supplied a drawing of a cow and a pig, with arrowscharting all the different edible sections by name, and myparents would put in their quarter-year order accordingly. Itlikely paid for itself in pork chops in no time.

The freezer was stored on the enclosed porch that extendedacross the back of our house. It was easy to get foods in andout of it, making it convenient for both daily use and long-termstorage. After holidays, any leftover cookies and pastrieswere tightly wrapped in double layers of tin foil and hiddenamong the steaks and hamburgers. There were sometimesChristmas cookies to be found there, the procurement ofwhich became a game of espionage. I had to devise reasonsfor going out onto the porch without raising suspicion. Toavoid being seen, timing was critical. My inner junkie wasexceptionally good at these games.

I snuck the cookies out two by two and ate them frozen. Theywere divine, even icy cold and stiffly solid. After seconds inmy mouth, they'd soften up beautifully and provide lasting,chewy, delicious satisfaction. Unfortunately, I was recklesswith the rewrapping. Kids don't have much patience for that.It didn't take long for my mother to realize that I was delvinginto the goodies. She was not happy about it. "Those are forspecial occasions!" she cried, looking at me wide-eyed, likeI'd committed a mortal sin and stood in the very clutches ofSatan himself. Whew! The drama.

I apologized profusely and slunk away. I was sincerely sorryfor upsetting my mom, but I had a hard time feeling sorrythat I had eaten the cookies. They were so delicious that Iwas pretty sure it was worth whatever punishment mightfollow. As it turned out, I received no punishment, andknowing it would be forgotten within a few weeks, myinner junkie had already begun plotting our next strategyfor acquisition.

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Since my folks were teachers, our summers were extraordinary.We took road trips in our Country Squire station wagon,even traveling across the entire country one summer withanother of our luxury items in tow: a pop-up Nimrodcamping trailer. We visited faraway...