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Monthly Archives: June 2015

Gov. Brown’s Immunization Law Disappoints and Disempowers Thinking Parents

While pro-vaxxers are thrilled with Governor Jerry Brown’s decision to make immunizations mandatory, many thinking parents feel disempowered by it. And for good reason.

Photo used with permission, courtesy of KCRA-TV Sacremento

Photo used with permission, courtesy of KCRA-TV Sacremento

Whether guided by shoot-from-the hip, gut-based decision-making or well-researched, rational thought, most parents have their children’s best interests at heart and try like the devil to do right by them. No parent wants a child to become sick or die because they made a “bad” decision.

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Touching: How a Weekly Hair Appointment Saved My Aunt

What is life without touch? Very lonely indeed. This is the story of how a weekly hair appointment brought meaning and connection into the life of a very special lady: my “Aunt D.”

Every Saturday morning Aunt D had a standing appointment with Michael. Her hairdresser. Later in the day, after buying her favorite brand-name groceries at Penn Fruit – a new and enormous supermarket that my bargain-hunter mom called “overpriced” – Aunt D would stop by our house sporting a two-inch-high, freshly lacquered hairdo. And with frozen peas and ice cream sitting in the trunk, she’d chat for hours perched on the edge of one particular arm chair, sucking peppermints to keep from smoking and jangling car keys between her knees.

Her scent was unmistakable.

The second I realized she was in the house I bolted out of my room and down the back stairs – regardless of whatever Billboard Hot 100 hit was playing on my radio. Because…well, she was Aunt D.  (And yes, we had back stairs. No front stairs. Just back stairs.)

Hair salon 1960s

There was a kind of rhythm to Aunt D’s week, all of which involved maintaining her hairdo. She once told me that after her appointment with Michael,  Continue reading