In some ways I can’t believe I’m 68 years old. When did that happen? In other ways, I feel 168 years old. Usually at the end of the day. Then again, I have such great memories of my childhood that with very little effort I can go back in time and remember what it was like, how it felt, to be 6 or 8; the clothes, the food, the smells, and especially the candy and long summer vacations that seemed to last forever.

I remember picking up the receiver of the ringing phone — one of those big, black heavy phones — when I was about 4 and as it turns out it was a man offering my mother the job where she worked for most of her life. I remember my father taking my friends and me to see “Jason and the Argonauts” at the movie theater and getting a Zorro watch for my 7th birthday. My friends and I got to go horseback riding at my cousins’ grandfather’s house for another birthday right after that one, and I got to ride without anyone leading the horse. I broke a window at the St. Stephen’s convent in fourth grade, ran away, then went back and confessed. Sr. Adriano gave me a big chocolate chip cookie and milk and praised me to my father on the phone. A few years later I was honored to be a pallbearer at her funeral. I remember sneaking into the off-limits big red barn at........

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