Tenacious G Goes Six String

 “And the night shall be filled with music,

  And the cares that infest the day

  Shall fold their tents like the Arabs

  And as silently steal away.”

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Day Is Done

One early memory I have of my mother is of sitting on the living room floor, listening to her tune her acoustic guitar. It seems that everyone of her generation learned a musical instrument, if for no other reason than to be social. During her high school years, she played in a band. Nothing Heavy Metal, mind you. (Rock and roll was still to be born.) It was the early 1940s. They belted out hits like, “You Are My Sunshine” and “Sweet Adeline.”

Several years ago, Mom’s lovely old guitar broke and couldn’t be fixed—and the music stopped. So I was surprised recently when I showed up to spend our usual Sunday afternoon together and she had a guitar case sitting on her bed. Apparently, one of her fellow residents at the assisted living facility can no longer play it, so it is on permanent loan to Mom.

Mom asked if I could take her to the local music store to get some picks and a shoulder strap. We  hopped in the car and I parked near the door. My 85-year-old mother determinedly tread into the music store past all the aspiring young musicians, guitar case in hand, offering a study in contrasts. She was intently focused on what she wanted, waiting patiently while a mother chatted with the clerk about music lessons for her squirmy son. Mom’s foot was slowly tapping in anticipation. This was serious business.

"I can't listen to Wagner that much. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland."

—Woody Allen

The clerk finally turned to Mom and asked what she wanted. “Picks and a guitar strap,” she replied tersely. He tried to sell her on a nice cushioned shoulder strap for $20, but she would have none of it.

“It’s not my guitar,” she interjected into his sales spiel, “So I’m not spending anything on it.” She settled for the $5 nylon strap. Nothing fancy, but it would get the job done. He told her the guitar strings were worn and should be replaced. She replied that they worked just fine. He suggested that she might want to consider a digital tuner. She responded with a thoroughly disgusted expression on her face, leaving a moment of awkward silence as he rang up her purchase. Not much of a sale that day. Just four 25-cent guitar picks and the strap.

Tenacious G, poised to play.

Mom looked satisfied as we left the store. She hadn’t played in years and was looking forward to having a guitar in her hands again.

"Music is an outburst of the soul."

—Frederick Delius

A week later, I stopped by for our regular Sunday outing and asked if she would play something for me. She was a bit sad. She told me she could play all the chords, but was no longer able to put the individual chords together into a song as she used to do without thinking. Apparently, the brain hemorrhage she had back in 2004 had damaged the part of the brain that knits chords into songs. I suggested that if she could play the chords, perhaps we could get a song book that lists the chords for each song, then she could play them that way. That idea perked her up a bit.

The music store was closed that day, but the song books are on my list of things to do. It should be interesting to see if Mom can coax some music out of her new guitar!

The Arc of Justice

My grandmother, Irene Reiner.

I am going to say something that may sound a bit outlandish: My interest in social justice began more than a century ago.

It was 1906. Teddy Roosevelt was president, an earthquake leveled San Francisco and a young girl of 14 named Irene Reiner left a dirt-floor shack in Kolozsvar, Hungary to live in the tenements of Manhattan.

Irene was my grandmother. At some point in her childhood, the inequity of the world must have touched off a spark inside, because she spent most of her life involved in social activism. She marched for the right of women to vote, and as a blue-collar factory worker, she staunchly backed unions. As a child, my father, Alfred, sat on her lap at public lectures on social issues, presented by some of the most preeminent intellectuals of the day.

Reared on social justice, Alfred followed in her footsteps. In the 1930s, following the passage of the Wagner Act, which protected the rights of workers to form unions, my father was among the first crop of activists to start a union at his workplace.

My dad, Alfred Friedman, enjoying the view at a park in Virginia.

So not surprisingly, my earliest memories are of sitting on the floor of our living room, surrounded by groups of adults passionately discussing social and political issues. My father supported the Civil Rights movement, equal treatment of women and—despite being a World War II veteran—was opposed to the Vietnam Conflict.

“I have never been especially impressed by the heroics of people who are convinced they are about to change the world. I am more awed by those who struggle to make one small difference after another.”—Ellen Goodman, columnist, 1941-

You might say that the ancestral chi of my grandmother and father inculcated in me a strong sense of social justice. They taught me about life by being who they were. This is particularly important in a world that seems increasingly motivated by profit over people. Washington DC runs by a system that sells legislation to the highest bidder. The highest bidder can be a corporation because the Supreme Court recently determined that corporations are people and can donate an unlimited amount of money anonymously to the candidates of their choice.

No matter. My mother told me when I was young that social and political movements tend to swing like pendulums between conservative and liberal, rich and poor. There is always a back and forth between the welfare of the masses versus the welfare of the privileged few. This is nothing new. Look at the Magna Carta from the 13th Century. (The Magna Carta was the first document forced onto an English king by a group of his subjects, the feudal barons, in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their privileges.)

More recently, our grandparents and great-grandparents fought for unions to ensure fair wages, for social safety nets (such as unemployment insurance and social security for the elderly and sick) and for the environment (Scotsman John Muir, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, fought to ensure that Yosemite National Park and its environs were protected from sheep farming and other forms of development).

“Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you're alive, it isn't.”—Richard Bach

Occupy Wall Street in NYC: reclaiming our country.

I recently read that the Koch brothers—two maniacal billionaires a la the tradition of James Bond villains—have sent funding to more than 150 colleges across the country with the stipulation that they can hire and fire professors and determine curriculum content. So the power elite are now not only controlling the majority of our news media, but also are beginning to indoctrinate college students to their value systems.  

How do we counter that? By taking our power back, and that begins with our government. The most formidable problem facing us today is the unlimited, money-based system in Washington, DC that is undermining our middle class. But that can be changed. Remember, there are more of us—the US populace—than there are of them—rich corporate and private concerns bent on controlling this country. We can get our country back by insisting on election-funding reform. This isn’t about the democrats or republicans. They are both servants to the money-hungry election-funding system that exists today. The polarized debates we see on television between parties is nothing more than a distraction from the real issue of election-funding reform.

The rich and powerful would like to dilute our efforts to change the current system by throwing out red herrings to distract us. If they can splinter the US populace into smaller groups and pit us against each other, they can quietly take all our jobs and liberties away. These bogus national issues of hatred include:

• Immigration issues
• Gay marriage issues
• Collective bargaining issues
• Religious issues
• Political party issues

We have always been a diverse country and that has been our strength. Those in power would like to turn that strength against us. Write to your Congressperson to demand a change in our election-funding rules. Until that happens, nothing will change. Remember, any injustice can be overcome given enough time and effort.

Perhaps the most profound statement regarding this came from the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. when he said, “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. It bends towards justice, but here is the thing: it does not bend on its own. It bends because each of us in our own way puts our hand on that arc and we bend it in the direction of justice...."

Song to My Father

Hi:

My father's birthday is coming up in March. He would have been 94 years old. I wrote a song (lyrics below) and uploaded it on YouTube. Geoff Martyn of Scotland wrote the music and sings the vocal.

Corporal Al Friedman, 11th Airborne Division

Happy Birthday, Dad!

My father was a veteran, a World War paratrooper
In the Pacific Theater, he fought like Gary Cooper.

When he returned he married, my mother looked like Grable.
They settled in the suburbs and lived the post-war fable.

First Tom was born in fifty, then me, the baby, Sally.
Our house was always crowded with activists and rallies

My Dad, he always taught us, to care for people weaker.
The disenfranchised, homeless, would always need a speaker.

He marched for rights of others, protested war and violence.
He told us he respected opposition more than silence.

My father worked a day job; he also worked a night shift,
Yet he was always present, his presence was his best gift.

He sent me off to college in search of something finer,
I learned to be a writer; I am a data miner.

I married just like Dad did, he cradled my two daughters.
We taught them social justice, baptized them in those waters.

No man can live forever; smoke takes its final fee;
His ghost is stale tobacco curling up inside of me.

For decades Dad’s been gone now, and life has lost its daring.
It seems when he departed the world became less caring.

We carry on his causes, the poor still need defending.
Their ranks are growing daily. No use in us pretending.

My father was a veteran, a World War paratrooper
From New Guinea to New Jersey, he fought like Gary Cooper.

Alfred William Friedman, March 30, 1918-May, 29, 1995

What the Frack?

"No one has the right to use America's rivers and America's Waterways that belong to all the people as a sewer. The banks of a river may belong to one man or one industry or one State, but the waters which flow between the banks should belong to all the people."—President Lyndon B. Johnson, signing the 1965 Clean Water Act

There's been a lot in the news lately about something called “fracking.” The natural gas industry and their customers benefit from it. But environmentalists and people who drink well water are fighting it. To understand why people love or hate it, let’s take a moment to explain just what it is.

Fracking is a slang term for hydro-fracturing, a process where water, sand and chemicals are injected into the earth at high pressure to fracture rock formations deep underground. This allows access to natural gas deposits that are playing hard to get.

Traditional drilling methods, used for over a century, brought gas to the surface simply by drilling vertically, with minimal environmental impact. (See "A," below.) However, most gas no longer resides in easily accessible reservoirs. Instead, it lies trapped within small fissures of rock. (See "B.") To extract the gas, vast amounts of water (with various chemicals added) are injected deep underground at extremely high pressure, thereby fracturing the rock (hence the term "fracking") and allowing the gas to escape. Sand injected along with the water helps to prop open the newly-created fissures (see "C.") and the gas can then rise to the surface through the fracking fluid.

Illustrations are from from "Hancock and the Marcellus Shale: Gas Extraction Along the Upper Delaware" by The Earth Institute Columbia University Urban Design Lab.

"One effect of benefit-cost analysis is to give any respectable engineer or economist a means for justifying almost any kind of project the national government wants to justify… Exclusive reliance on benefit-cost analysis has been one of the greatest threats to wise decisions in water development."—Gilbert F. White, unpublished paper, Columbia University, March 21, 1971

What are the advantages of fracking?

• An AARP Public Policy Institute analysis of heating costs for seniors found natural gas customers will average $542 to heat their homes this winter, fuel oil customers will average $2,675 and electric heat customers will average around $468, according to an article in the December 18, 2011 Star Ledger. (While oil prices rose in recent years, electric prices are tied to gas because of gas-fired power plants.) The increased supply—and therefore lower cost—of natural gas has come from fracking shale deposits in nearby states such as Pennsylvania
• The federal government projects that by 2035, 47 percent of gas produced in the U.S. will come from shale sources. That increased production is especially beneficial to New Jersey residents: 76 percent of New Jersey homes heat with gas, compared with 12 percent using fuel oil and kerosene and 11 percent that use electricity, according to Census Bureau data. (I, unfortunately, belong to the oil-poor group)

"Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans."—Jacques Cousteau (1910-1997) 

What are the disadvantages of fracking?

As opposed to traditional drilling, fracking requires:

• Vast amounts of water
• Various chemical lubricants, many of which are toxic. (Chemicals used in fracking are considered proprietary, and are therefore secret, ie, you're being poisoned on a need-to-know basis)

So why is the above important?

• The water used in fracking poses a major disposal problem. It ends up in reservoirs that can leak into groundwater
• There have been over a thousand instances of groundwater contamination in areas near fracking sites. Read all about it!
• Fracking has never been subject to an independent assessment of its environmental impact. (Although a study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] is currently being conducted in Washington, amid the objections from the oil and gas industries)
• Fracking isn't subject to federal regulation. (This was accomplished via an EPA exemption pushed through Congress by then Vice-President Dick Cheney in 2005)
• The full long-term environmental impact of fracking is unknown. (What better reason to go full-speed ahead!)

“We believe the natural gas industry should be subject to the same regulations as any other industry in the US. The natural gas in the ground isn't going anywhere. It's been there for millions of years and will remain there until disturbed. Groundwater, on the other hand, can take generations to recover once it's been contaminated. Once the damage is done, it cannot be undone. The safety of our groundwater supply is at risk.”—Frackaction.com

What is the stance of our altruistic Congress?

• In a hearing on Capitol Hill last May, Republican members of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee struggled to make the case against an investigation by the EPA into fracking. The agency is already midway into its multi-year study
• Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) recently protested that the agency should not even be conducting the study. During the hearing, he seemed to suggest that the EPA study wasn’t needed because not enough people have died to warrant an investigation, according to earthjustice.org. So does that mean the Congressman from California is admitting that some people have died as a result of fracking’s impact on the environment—but not enough of them?
• Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) forced the Republicans’ star witness Michael J. Economides to admit that the oil and gas industry pays him about $1 million a year to testify on their behalf. So do you think he’d show up if the job were pro bono?
• A week before the May hearing, Duke University researchers unveiled a peer-reviewed study for publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that finds high methane levels in groundwater near where fracking has occurred. France’s conservative-controlled lower house of parliament took the first legislative step toward approving a nationwide ban on fracking. (So those pesky academics—and the French—are spoiling the fracking party due to some bothersome things called facts)

"You don't miss your drinking water until your well runs dry."—old country proverb

Is fracking being done in New Jersey?

Fracking has not yet been approved in New Jersey. It is currently being considered in Trenton, pending additional hearings. Environmentalists fighting the introduction of fracking into our small state have pointed to findings earlier this month by the EPA that fracking could cause groundwater pollution. The Delaware River Basin Commission is also looking into setting rules for fracking to safeguard the Delaware watershed.

State ratepayer advocate Stefanie Brand, describes cheap natural gas as a wonderful thing for ratepayers—but she wants savings to come with safety. "We have to see better (environmental) practices," Brand said in the Star Ledger, "Because we’re not solving any problem if the end result is contaminating our water supply."

Everything in life comes at a price. Are you willing to decrease the cost of your heating bills at the risk of contaminating your drinking water? If you go onto YouTube, you can see videos of people in other states lighting the water coming out of their faucets with a match. Not a pretty sight. This is a small state with a limited aquifer for drinking water. The question is: Are you feeling lucky?

Tenacious G Plays the Good Samaritan

One reality of having an elderly parent is that you end up sitting in the emergency room from time to time. For instance, a few years ago, my mother decided to leap onto her single bed and landed on the opposite-side floor. This resulted in a broken toe—and a six-hour wait in the emergency room with my mother profusely complaining about the bad service. In a preventive measure, I purchased a double bed for her so that the next time she leapt, she would not overshoot and break something else.

Last night, my mother’s assisted living facility called to say that she had hit her head while trying to help another resident with a motorized wheelchair off an elevator. Apparently, her friend hit the accelerator at the wrong time and sent her flying against the wall. File that one under Geriatric Hijinks.

Tenacious G's assisted living crib: Victoria Mews.

“The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But... the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’”—Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., not anticipating Tenacious G.

The phone rang around 5:30 p.m. on Saturday night. The Victoria Mews nurse asked that I ferry Mom to the local hospital to ensure the lump on her head was not serious. Bear in mind, that Saturday night is typically the time of week when you are competing with the aftermath of drunk driving, bar fights and whatever else sends people to the hospital during their leisure pursuits.

Little did the nurse appreciate just how hard my mother’s skull truly is. I drove out there and found my mother sitting in the nurse’s office with an icepack on her head, looking like a wayward student in the principal’s office.

“This is nonsense,” she protested. Just the same, the emergency room visit was necessary, so we hopped into my car and drove to the hospital. The nurse there had a great sense of humor. I handed her the stack of papers the facility had given me and she had all the documentation she needed. She ushered us into a curtained stall to await the doctor. Mom occupied a gurney that allowed her to sit up. I had packed a bunch of holiday catalogs for her to read so she wouldn’t complain loudly about the service.

“Love makes the world go round and so does a bump in the head.”—Bill Ekstrand

Not a patient: Tenacious G's friend is a Halloween mummy.

A nice doctor came in to ask her what happened. He laughed and encouraged her to continue helping her fellow residents, despite the scolding she had received from her assisted living nurses. He felt a CAT scan was in order, so she was wheeled out for that. An hour later, she received a clean bill of health and the admiration of the staff on her 85-year-old, tough-as-nails constitution. I told the nurse that I expected that some day she would be taking care of me.

We got back into my car and she immediately assumed the captaincy of the vehicle, directing my driving, from how to back out of the parking space to the proper position my hands should assume on the steering wheel. There was a lot of “Watch out!” and “Look both ways!” that was reminiscent of my younger days.

When we got back to her facility, I walked her up to the nurse’s office to share the discharge papers. “I figured there was nothing wrong with her,” the nurse admitted, “But we had to check it out and make sure.” I agreed.

Mom sped off in her unsteady gate toward her room, grumbling about what nonsense it had all been and such a waste of time. “See you tomorrow!” I said to her back as she trundled off. It was time to return home for a very late dinner.

Aging With My Pedal to the Metal

I've spent most of my life not giving much thought to old age. When I was young it seemed irrelevant, and when I was middle-aged I was too busy. Now that the kids are grown and I have time to reflect, I see old age as a car speeding toward a precipice. Someday, I will go over the edge and plunge to my doom, but until then I'm hoping I can continue to keep my foot pressed down to the floor on the accelerator.

“True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.” — Kurt Vonnegut

My earliest memories of old people involve living a block away from the Firemen's Home in Boonton, New Jersey. Firemen who had no place to live when they got old stayed there. The elderly firemen used to stroll up and down our street for exercise and fresh air. They walked very slowly and smiled at us kids as we ran up and down the street playing noisily. We said hi to them; they said hi back. It never occurred to me to try to talk to them. They were odd-looking creatures—and after all, they were strangers.

Great Aunt Allie in the nursing home circa the 1960s.

I also spent a good part of my childhood visiting nursing homes to call on my grandmother's sister, Aunt Allie. These homes were smelly and filled with people who looked sad or scared. I have images from my childhood of the elderly staring into space as if they had been deserted on a street corner. I suppose, in a sense, they had.

What I didn't appreciate when I was a child was that while the elderly look old, inside they feel the same as anyone else. My 85-year-old mother tells me that sometimes when she looks in the mirror, she's surprised to see someone old staring back. "I feel the same way I did when I was 18," she says.

“It takes a long time to become young.”—Pablo Picasso

We seem to be living in a culture that de-valuates old age. People are always trying to look younger and erase wrinkles. Ironically, some cultures celebrate those wrinkles. According to Chinese face reading, every wrinkle on your face represents a lesson learned. To erase wrinkles is to erase the wisdom that's been gained. Nice thought. I'm tired of seeing commercials on how to erase my aging, as if it were a disease. I'm getting old. Deal with it. If my appearance is too hideous, then avert your eyes.

Cultures around the world have diverse ways of viewing old age, according to e-HeathyAging.com, Pulitzer prize-winning author Professor Jared Diamond and a few other sources:

Tenacious G (Grandma) feeling as young as ever.

• American Indians: They regard their elderly as knowledgeable and their older women as powerful. The grandmother is the heart of the family, and as she ages, the family cares for her in return for her years of devotion.
• Japan: Age is synonymous with wisdom and authority. Older people are the family advisers. The basic unit of Japanese society is the family, and the welfare of the family as a whole is placed above individual members. Elders are the nucleus around which families are built. They are seen as wise, respected, and most importantly, contributing members of society. Children take care of their parents long into their advanced years and consider it an honor.
• East Asia: Cultures steeped in a Confucian tradition place a high value on filial piety, obedience and respect. It is considered utterly despicable not to take care of your elderly parents.
• India: The elderly hold authority, with the right to control the wealth of the family. Matriarchs often run the household. As a sign of respect, Indians have a custom of touching the feet of an older person when they meet. They bow down their heads in front of the elderly as a sign of offering themselves as a vessel of service for the older individual.
• Latin America: The elderly are highly regarded because of their wisdom and inner strength. They are shown a high degree of respect and are cared for by the younger generation when they are no longer able to take care of themselves. This is usually done in the home as opposed to in a facility. Taking care of their elderly is a matter of honor and pride.
• Germany: They see dependence as a very negative quality and invest a lot of time and energy to keep themselves young and healthy. Some studies suggest that Americans consider themselves old at a much younger age than Germans and most of their European counterparts.
• Traditional nomadic tribes: They often abandon their elderly during their travel out of necessity. The healthy and young cannot carry the old and infirm on their backs—along with children, weapons and necessities—through perilous territory. 
• Paraguay’s Aché Indians: They assign certain young men the task of killing old people with an ax or spear, or burying them alive. They often experience famine so food can be scarce. 

Old age ain't no box of chocolates!

“Old age is an excellent time for outrage. My goal is to say or do at least one outrageous thing every week.” —Louis Kronenberger

So there are cultures that revere the elderly and consider caring for them an honor; cultures like the United States that consider the elderly unproductive and senile, and shove them away in nursing homes; and cultures that are too poor in food and resources to keep their elderly alive. I guess that puts the future American elderly like me in the mediocre middle. We aren't revered or respected, but we're not being whacked by a family member either.

My ambition at this point is to be one of those crazy old ladies who wears a red hat, protests for social justice as a member of the Raging Grannies, and keeps a small posse of cats for company. Like most people, I hope to live life to the fullest until I go over the cliff. In the meantime, I intend to keep my foot firmly pressed on the accelerator—and enjoy the ride.

Queen for a Day

A woman savors the glory of being crowned Queen for a Day.

When I was a young child, there was a television show called Queen for a Day. Clutching my sippie cup, I would watch as housewives in horn-rimmed glasses and aprons competed like nobody's business to be crowned Queen for a Day so they could win new kitchen appliances. They competed by telling the most heart-rending tale of woe about their lives that they could muster. The most pathetic storyteller would win. It always ended with a crying matron being crowned, robed and handed a bouquet of roses—the women off to the side trying not to look too bitter. I guess you could call this the precursor to reality television. Needless to say, this show would probably be a tad politically incorrect these days. But my mother's generation enjoyed watching it. We, after all, are a nation of competitors, whether housewives, business people or athletes.

Then, there's another form of competition....

Nothing says Halloween like a freak blizzard.

My mother lives in an assisted living facility. Every year they have a Halloween party where the residents—ages 80 to 100-plus—compete with the ferocity of the Olympics to win prizes for the best costumes. This year, my mother chose to be Cleopatra. We bought a size large sequenced gown along with a very impressive black wig, cut with the distinctive Cleopatra bangs. Even at 85, Mom is still a party girl at heart and knows how to have a good time.

I took the day off from work so I could help her dress for the event, and due to an unseasonal blizzard a few days before, which knocked out electricity where my husband works, he came along as well. I had been too busy that day to dress in costume, but Steve donned his batman outfit, figuring he could blend in with the residents. They were quite pleased to see a "young man" come dressed in costume. He posed for several pictures with his bat wings outstretched, enjoying the attention.

Tenacious G rules the Nile at Victoria Mews assisted living.

Mom had actually gotten most of her costume on by the time we had arrived. She just needed help with the velcro in the back. Also, I tucked back some wisps of telltale gray hair that were trying to assert themselves out from under her black wig.

The festivities began with the residents walking or riding their motorized wheelchairs along the hallways to show off their Halloween personas. They ranged from a pirate brandishing his sword as he trundled along in his wheelchair to a hippie grandma on a walker donning long blond hair and psychedelic clothing. Then everyone sat in an upstairs meeting room for hot cider, crudites and candy.

An elderly gentlemen dressed in bright red long underwear offered live music with songs he belted out on his saxophone.  He played "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" to a green witch and a number of classic tunes from the 1940s.

Free, live sax from an old Italian man.

The recreational director was snapping photos of everyone. When she was done, she projected them on a large screen so everyone could see themselves and their fellow residents on the Big Screen. I also took a few choice photos, which I share with you here.

Pat, owner of VM, told dirty jokes, poodle in hand.

The judges walked around the room thoughtfully reviewing this year's entries. Finally, it was time to announce the winners. A green witch in a motorized wheelchair won for the scariest costume. Her daughter had come earlier in the day to dress her and paint her face green with dark circles under the eyes. A woman wearing a mask of an old man with a cigar in his mouth won for the funniest costume. And finally—and I saw my mother, lips pursed, waiting expectantly with hopes of glory—the most original costume was awarded to the resident who had dressed like Cleopatra. Mom jumped up and grasped a $5 gift certificate to the facility's on-site general store.

Then the owner of Victoria Mews—a senior citizen himself—began telling dirty jokes that surprised even Steve and me. None of the grandmothers or grandfathers celebrating the day seemed to mind. Some of them looked like they might be dozing off anyway.

Mom clutched her certificate, satisfied, that this year she had captured the prize for her costume. Cleopatra had achieved the status of Queen for a Day.