I apparently invited only six kids to my eighth birthday party, so my mother didn’t make us sit on the floor. These two attendees are Debbie and Darlene: the girls next door. To say we were close was a geographical reality. Though Debbie was younger than me, she was in my grade. Darlene was eleven months younger than her. Their family was Catholic, so they went to Catholic school, which I did not.

Their mother was the coolest (You can see her here) because she worked at a toy store. That meant they got all the trendy toys that my parents would not buy. Their father and my father both worked at RCA in Princeton New Jersey, so they car pooled to work together. And when the Neils did something fun, their family often included me. It was their father, Clyde, who taught me to ride a bicycle. When he taught both of them, he just added me into the group.