January 9, 2003

           I got underway late. Here's the dumb reason. The cold spell. I told you when I was a kid the room I slept and was often cold at night. I developed a habit of pulling the covers over my head. That was not a problem back then because in my family the first person woke up delighted in waking up everybody else whether or not they wanted to sleep in. With eight people in a house nobody ever got to sleep a moment longer than necessary.

           But it was cold, up went the quilt and I slept through the alarm.

           Ernie across the hall one $412 on the Powerball, and took the gang to lunch. Think of it, he was one number away from $155,000.

           [Author's note: sleep deprivation. That was one of the major reasons I left home at such an early age and never went back. In 15 years it was rare to get two or three hours of uninterrupted sleep. It was like living in a madhouse. My parents always contended that if you were really, really, really tired, you'd be able to sleep.
           The culminating incident was when my own mother said to me, "Your brother has just as much right to run chainsaws inside the house while you try to study, as you have a right to try to study while your brother runs chainsaws inside the house."
           She went on to add that we were all equally her children which meant we were all equally allowed to bother each other. At that point I had not yet learned that me reading a book so much bothered some people. I'm not making this up; she said this to me the night before my final accounting exam. Ten days after that, I left never to return.]

           [Author’s note 2022: this picture added later for balance. This is the view of the original fish tank in Alaine's first condo in South Maimi. Don't push for historical accuracy on records this old, and expect repeats. My excuse remains the same as ever. Anybody who remembers what they were doing on a given day is not leading my life.]