Susanne Grayson Townsend

A sickly-yellow (but not for long) 1950 Chevrolet stick-shift convertible my dad bought for $200, then ran it through the Frisco diesel shop to get it sprayed Frisco red. Correction: R-E-D!!! Besides being the coolest thing I had ever, or will ever own, it had an unusual feature: it could be started without a key. Just a little twist, if you knew where to twist, and it was ready to go. I would leave it in the PHS parking lot for any of my buddies to use in case of emergency, say a Taylor's attack (You Know Who You Are), but after three dropped transmissions, Dad got that feature revised.

Miss Cunningham -- I can still recite the first 18 lines of the Canterbury Tales in authentic Middle English, although sadly, I am rarely called upon to do so.

So many embarrassing moments; so little time ....
was it blurting out full voice solo"AND HE SHALL REIGN FOREVER AND EHEHVER" -- 4 lines before the altos were supposed to come in? Was it calling a First and Ten Let's Do It Again... for the other team? Was it tripping and falling flat on my face climbing up to the platform at the Viking Festival? We'll let the viewers decide.

That's easy. "Everyday," Buddy Holly. Who of course was killed with Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper on The Day That Music Died, 4 months before we graduated.

Car discussed above -- favorite destination, Taylor's, of course -- and the Holsum Bread (it WAS Holsum, wasn't it????) plant where we would buy a hot loaf, unsliced and unpackaged, and tear it apart with our hands, slathering every beautiful bite with the sticks of butter we always carried with us. It was every bit as disgusting as it sounds, and just as delicious.

I'm a lot less mature.

I'd stop reading if I were you, because this is waayyyyy too long. And some of you know it already. But in case you're still with me:
Thanks to all those years writing all those television commercials for all those products nobody needs, I've had gobs of great gigs in great places working with great people, ranging from a month in Kenya on a (television) shooting safari, to weeks with BB King and Gladys Knight on tour. There have been juicy jaunts to Europe, and, in harsh winters, lush layovers in lavish tropical locations because the client wanted to get away from the snow. Always posh, and always paid for by somebody else. But the best journey by far was the one I took on my own nickel, on my own two blistering feet, to the bottom of the Grand Canyon to mark my 60th birthday. Arriving at last at Phantom Ranch, having hiked 7 rocky, brutal, shadeless hours in 110-degree weather, straight down, hotter and dirtier and tireder than I had ever been, splashing down fully (and filthily)-clothed into icy Bright Angel Creek, beside the Colorado River gazing up into that indescribable canyon cathedral, drinking freshly-mixed margaritas (made with backpacked-in limes and tequila), realizing that whatever else ever happened ever, for this one moment in time, life doesn't get any better. That memory is especially sweet now, because 9 days later, on September 11, that "whatever else ever happens ever" happened.

Figure out what I probably should have been doing all these years instead of what I've done and do it.