Adventures

---

---

Curled up on my bed in winter, my patio in summer, I found pleasure in books: Nancy Drew and Deanna Durbin, witty teens who dashed about in little roadsters, adored by their handsome beaux.

I imagined being beautiful and witty, blond curls rustling in the wind, as Ned or Buck or Jack or Tom reached for my alabaster hand while driving his little roadster.

But Nancy and Deanna did not have freckles. They weren’t chubby. They would never curl up with a book when the sun was shining, when mysteries needed to be solved, when Buck or Ned or Tom or Jack was out front honking the horn of his heavenly roadster, until Mother said to Father, “You must put a stop to that infernal racket, Dear,” and Father marched out to the curb and invited the young man in for a steaming cup of cocoa and homemade chocolate chip cookies.

My mother never baked; I tried it, but failed. My mother never sewed, either, and in seventh grade Home Economics, when I had to make my own apron, to use in cooking class, she cheerfully bought one at a store to replace the misshapen wreck I had created.

But my mother was beautiful, as beautiful as Nancy and Deanna, and athletic, too. She played tennis and biked and her Betty Grable legs attracted the eye of every Tom, Buck, Ned and Jack at a nearby swimming pool, where she dove like a swan and swam like a butterfly.

My mother never had adventures like the girls in my books, but I did, much later, and wish she could have had them, too.

 

Some of my adventures as an aviation wonk