Every day I think of the luck I’ve had – not to be born a slave, to be able to make choices – at least some of the time.  I know our election would probably not make a difference in our society, but the fact that I can try to change something still makes things better to my mind.

And now here is a moment of confession.  This is one of the rare years when my birthday is the same in the Hebrew calendar and the Roman calendar.  I’ve probably said this already in these pages.  The war was still raging, my parents had escaped a bombing by chance – the story as I heard it was that they were about to meet each other and were walking toward each other from opposite  corners of the street when a bomb fell between them.  I have no way of verifying this story but as of now none of my mother’s stories have been proven fantasies or exaggerations.  So this event probably happened today 76 years ago.  Maybe it was before then, but I still remember the smock my mother wore and how I pictured her when she told me the story.

i’ll tell you more about my birthday some other time.  My point in this story was that my parents were in the middle of the mess, but they were free,  They weren’t rounded up and shot, or pushed into gas chambers, or given poison injections – they were walking on the street…

so i choose to limit my activities to relatively safe alternatives.  and i’m free