Should we

[frogmarch]

14. I’m probably the oldest one here.

I was born in Karachi, Pakistan when Karachi was still in India. My Anglo-Indian mother, who’d had rheumatic fever as a child, died of heart disease when I was about three weeks old. I was about a year old when my father, an American soldier, arranged passage for my older half-sister and me aboard a troop transport ship bound for the States, and except for the few years afterward that I lived in Tokyo with my family, I’ve lived in America – specifically in northwestern Nebraska (where I live now), South Dakota and Wyoming. Dad had wanted us to grow up away from cities, and so we did.

My dad married the ARC worker assigned to care for my sister and me on the three-month ocean voyage, and she became the only mom I ever knew. She was a devout Presbyterian and made us girls attend Sunday School and church services every week, or else not be allowed to go the movies the next Saturday, but in every other way she was reasonable and wonderful. I think my dad was an agnostic, or maybe even an atheist. He read my two sisters (my half-sister and adoptive Japanese-American sister) and me children’s bible stories at bedtime when we were young, pausing often as he read so one of us could say, “That doesn’t make sense!” and we could discuss it. He told us to never be afraid to question things or to think. Whenever Mom popped in to see what bible story we were being read that night, Dad would start reading again. Sometimes, instead of continuing with a bible story, my sisters and I were able to talk him into performing “Tam o’Shanter” in his funny pretend-Scottish accent. It was fun and exciting and we never grew tired of it. In spite of herself, Mom liked it too.

I’m a vegetarian and my favorite foods are chocolate and potato chips. I’m still on the thin side even though I’ve lost 2” in height over the past few years because old people tend to shrink. I like to write short stories, and sometimes I home-record myself “singing” (oh, well, it’s fun) and playing one or other of my musical instruments – violin, cello, Celtic harp, hammer dulcimer, Irish whistles, mountain dulcimer (and maybe someday my didgeridoo, if I ever get the hang of it).

Oh, and I’m a woman. My girl days are spent. Sniffle.