So this is how it is?!!?  You want me to write it all down...okay, you're on.  I guess I'll talk about Connie first.  A stronger ally you couldn't have asked for, from sitting with me while I was doing acid in the dark to siding with my future wife in convincing me she had a right to move things around in the apartment, after all she lived there too, Connie was by my side urging me to open up to life and let her know what I was seeing since I could talk.  As a mother I can't say anything other than she wanted to try and was a good example of why there should be books issued at birth for guidance.  Probably because I wasn't born to her or because she was stubborn  and believed she knew she had a better idea of what was right than the author the book would have remained unopened.  It's not that she wouldn't care about getting it right it's just that since she took a piece of stove-wood to her old man at the gentle age of thirteen and went off on her own never to return, she had to get it right pretty quick and leave very little room for errors.    Connie developed amnesia shortly after having  arrivied in SanFrancisco somewhere around 1925.  She had been hungry for days and it caught up with her in a restaurant where she had asked for water.  She regained consciousness only to discover she couldn't even remember her name.  This lasted a number of years in which time she married at least twice and worked in the resturant for quite a while.  Oneof her husbands durring this time was married the other I'm not sure of, however I can say she was shod of  them pretty quick.  As a girl she was attracted to the-faster side of life in the Bay area while dating a cop and got to know where all the dance clubs and opium dens were.  She made great use of the former and little if any of the latter.  I can still recall her trying to teach me all the steps to the Charleston though sad to say I only got a fraction of them down.  Still it was fun to learn from her 'cause she was infectious when the mood struck her to enjoy something she liked.  By the time WW2 came along she was working with her then husband  Walt in logging.  She drove one of the trucks and rumor has it that during down time set out and built their household furniture by the skills she had obtained.  Rosie the Riveter had nothing on her.  It's funny, or sad, when I found out about the reasons behind the ERA I ended up referring to Connie as more able to get the job done when need be than most of the "men" we had in congress.   I never really got it but we always had books around and she encouraged me to read anything although I know for a fact she only had a fifth grade education.  She would read the newspaper through just after breakfast and I never even asked her how.  I guess I just struck it up to nothing would ever prevent her from getting along in life, especially ignorance.  One reason I guess she hated living in the South.  It's said that the South is a place while all the others, north, east and west, are just directions.  I guess they're right.  Damn shame it had to be populated by the decedents of all the cowards and rejects from the War of Northern Aggression.  These folks epitomized the backwards, mean spirited, despicable and just plain ignorant behavior that Connie would find unacceptable.(much more to come)