At the gym, it takes twenty-two laps to walk around the track for two miles. Counting backward this morning, I decided to record for myself the most significant event in my life for each of those years.
At twenty-two, I bet my husband we would conceive a child with one unprotected lovemaking session or I would not "bother" him about a second child for another year. On October 31, our daughter Linda was born.
At twenty-one, I voted for the first time, for John F. Kennedy and it was the first time my choice for a candidate for president won the election.
At twenty, I gave birth to my firstborn son just nine months after we were married. That's how I knew I'd win the bet! Folks were counting; I wore more and more safety pins strung together to keep my jeans closed. My son wore my mortar and tassel at age three months!
At nineteen, I was married after a year's courtship and engagement. Without birth control, we married early.
At eighteen, I switched colleges due to a business downturn in the economy and my refusal to accept a scholarship. I could not tolerate the pressure and I had learned how to study.
At seventeen, I traveled to Germany for the summer after winning an essay contest my mother encouraged me to write. She wanted me to be her eyes and ears, to see what was left of the country she so loved before the advent of Hitler.Then, my first month at college, the girls locked me in a bathroom stall and held the door closed until I learned to insert a tampon.
At sixteen I held my first summer job. I was a gopher in a law office in the city, as in Go For coffee, go to the Hall of Records, deliver packages from one law firm to the other.
At fifteen we moved from the city to the suburbs, where I had my own bedroom for the first time and traded in my babyLouis heels for black and white oxfords and pleated skirts.
At fourteen I traveled to school each day by public transportation as the local elementary school went to eighth grade and the high school began in tenth.
At thirteen I fought with my mother to let me wear stockings and those babyLouis heels.
At twelve, I learned about the birds and bees and my mother handed me a box of Modess and a belt and said "You know what to do with these, right?"
At eleven, I asked the rabbi if I could lead junior congregation services as I knew the liturgy as well as any of the boys. I was told I might be unclean and was therefore excused from that obligation.
At ten, I went by bus to a large Conservative hebrew school where we delighted in the birth of Israel, sang Palmach songs and raised money to plant trees in the desert. My Grandma Rosa and my Uncle Julius arrived from Switzerland where they had spent the war years, having been rescued by my Aunt Friedl. They were only permitted to remain in that country for two years after the war ended.
At nine, I took the bus with my Oma and Opa who arrived from Germany six months before, to get their First Papers to becoming American citizens and they discovered I understood what they had been saying in German since their arrival.
At eight, I began religious aftershool and I learned to recite the Four Questions at the Seder table three months after my mother was reunited with her parents who had survived the war.
I also had a second sister to walk around the block with until she fell asleep in her carriage and I could park her near my mother's open window.
At seven I had eye surgery twice to correct amblyopia which the doctors had tried to correct by having me wear a pirate patch over one eye.And then we banged pot lids together to make a lot of noise because the war was finally over. My mother finally was contacted by HIAS that her parents were alive.
At six, my Uncle Joey who was a soldier on leave from the war went with us to the seashore and won a large doll who I named Linda.
At five I was afraid. The police stopped my father from sending small pieces of paper up the kitestring, assuming he was sending messages to u-boats off the coast.
At four, my sister was born and my mother tried to interest me in a doll, but all I wanted was the real baby.
At three, we moved to an apartment where I held the clothespins while my mother hung out the wash. I also helped her collect the small strawberries she planted in our victory garden in the back yard.
At two, my mother's brother and his wife arrived from Palestine and lived with us until my uncle was accepted into the Army where he could go back to Germany and help fight the war against Hitler.
And at one, I listened and learned German nursery rhymes and stories while my mother was alone with me and my father went to work. She missed her old life and her dog Toddie who she had to leave behind when they moved here to run away from the Nazis.
