We were planning to celebrate my 13th birthday with a dinner at my special restaurant, The Pump Room, which served my favorite dessert, a strawberry short-cake with homemade whipped cream. But the celebration was interrupted with a phone call from my uncle, Harry. “Edith, Muni escaped from Camarillo today,” uncle Harry told her. I could

Growing up in the San Fernando Valley was a delight. It seemed that summertime lasted forever and our little home in Sherman Oaks was the center of a wonderful universe from which I began to explore. The front yard was big and it was lined by trees, which I soon began climbing. I was a