Happy 75th Birthday Helen Carlson

It was a crisp and sunny October 30th.

Projecting my mother into the present gets harder after 32 years...

The black hair would be mostly white and she'd need bifocals; but unlike her mother's they'd be progressives in light-weight black and silver titanium frames. I suspect her opinions on everything would be just as snappy, even if everything has changed.

I'd give her a &75.00 dollar Starbucks card (she would love the espresso shots) and a soft sweater in her burnt oranges. More than that, I'd take her to dinner with my daughters, my husband and me. But that is too small a group, I'm sure she'd have a bevy of fellow teachers, poets, and eBay ephemera merchants to toast her. We would make her laugh...

Too bad she can't be here, it would have been a hell of a party.