Want to play hand and foot? I greeted this invitation with the suspicion it deserved. I had no idea what was being offered. I would learn that hand and foot is a card game, a legitimate one, sanctioned by our Auburn Newcomers and Neighbors social club. I hadn’t played cards in years. When I was a teenager, my brother-in-law, Pete, who lived across the street, would dash across the road on a Friday night anxious to pry away some of my wages before I had a chance to go out and blow in one night what took me all week to earn. We usually played pontoon, otherwise known as blackjack. The stakes were low, so even if I wasn’t lucky, I still had a few shillings left to spend at the local Black Domino Café, our local hangout until we were old enough to booze it up at the Dog and Duck pub. Hazel, our Newcomers’ hiking leader, had asked the hand and foot question. She offered to teach me the game. I wouldn’t say I’ve gained enough confidence to try out for the Texas Hold’em Championship, but I managed to grasp the essentials of the game — just don’t ask me to do mental arithmetic. Not wanting to commit to a regular schedule, I volunteered to be a substitute. The game is played with two couples at each of three tables. If there are absentees, others don’t get to play. I advised Hazel to only call if she was desperate. The annual Christmas game night was approaching. The group was desperate. They called me. I reluctantly agreed although I was usually in bed, under my electric blanket, reading when they are still playing. After I said "yes,” I received a second call from Hazel. Bye the way, we do a gift exchange — spend approximately $20. OK then. The good news? The dinner was a potluck and I wasn’t expected to bring anything. As I roamed around Hazel’s kitchen admiring and sampling the food, a vivacious member of the group arrived swaddled in a mink coat looking every bit the movie star. I half expected to see a stretch limo idling at the curb. “I can only wear this at private events,” she confided, “where I know I'm not going to be attacked.” Several ladies nodded in empathy, even the animal lovers. “I bought it for $80 at a garage sale, years ago, in New Jersey.” This explained a lot. She laid the coat in the studio next to the kitchen. She let me try it on. As I stroked the fur, Mrs. Carrington popped into my head. She was an elderly lady who lived across from my mother. She and her best friend, Mrs. Hudson, would walk by our house, arm in arm. They'd be all dolled up in high heels, stockings, wool coat, hat, gloves and a handbag dangling on their arm just like the Queen. They were on their way to catch the green double-decker bus to town where they’d wander in and out of all those quaint shops on Market Street. These were the days before the first supermarket arrived and changed the town forever. I thought the ladies looked very elegant, with one exception. I could never look directly at the pointy noses and tiny paws that dangled at the end of the fox fur they wrapped around their necks. The hand and foot group ate, drank, played cards and then it was time for the gift exchange — the one that involves picking a number, choosing an unmarked gift, and "stealing" someone else’s gift that you fancy. I had played this game at an office party when I was working. I’d opened a gift that was a beautiful wooden jewelry box, handmade by one of our coworkers. I grinned from ear to ear. But not for long. Another coworker "stole" it from me. I know this sounds petty, and it is, but I never looked at that coworker the same way again. I hadn’t "stolen" the jewelry box, I’d come by it honestly. I wondered if it was this memory that pinned me to my chair at Hazel’s house. I couldn’t "steal" anyone else’s gift. Others had no such compunction. A soft throw blanket gift was gleefully snatched by several and stroked as lovingly as I stroked the mink coat. There is more to the jewelry box tale. The maker of the box, remembering how disappointed I’d been to have the jewelry box pried from my grasp, would, years later, make another for me after I retired. This one, even more ornate than the other.

"Three chords and the truth," said Harlan Howard, the late country music songwriter, “is all you need to write a country song.” Country music fans will recognize the quote. I heard it for the first time while glued to the telly recently watching "Country Music," the historical documentary created by the brilliant filmmaker, Ken Burns. I was not a country music fan. The male singers sounded miserable — drinking and misbehaving. The female singers either sang about putting up with this nonsense or plotting to put the guy out of his misery. I proudly turned my nose up at the genre. Until one night. The year was 2008. I was curled up on the couch, a glass of wine in hand, watching the Kennedy Center Honors, a celebration of artists who made significant contributions to American culture. The Bush couple were in attendance that evening, a tradition for a sitting president and his wife. Laura Bush looked different that night. And it wasn’t just the First Lady’s dress — a shimmering burgundy gown with a surprising thigh-high slit. Mrs. Bush was personal and funny. She stood in the middle of the stage looking up to the balcony at two Georges — her own George, and one of the evening’s honorees, singer George Jones. “When I was still in school,” Mrs. Bush began, “my friends and I must have put a 1,000 quarters in the jukebox listening to George Jones belting out ‘The Race is On,’ over, and over, and over. And,” she went on, "when Frank Sinatra paid his tribute he went as far as he could when he said, 'George Jones is the second-best singer in America.'" The audience roared. And then, as I was taking a sip of my wine, the first few cords of George Jones’ biggest hit-filled my living room — "He said I’ll love you ‘til I die …” The screen blurred. A tear plopped into my Chardonnay. I was glad I was alone. Then I did what all British-born people are taught to do. I blew my nose and pulled myself together. But what will I do, I thought, if this song plays somewhere in public? What if I have the same reaction? I decided to inoculate myself. In the following weeks, courtesy of iTunes, I played Jones’ song once a day. After three weeks I was cured. I could listen to the song and hold back the tears. All I had to do was gulp. So I blame George Jones that I no longer sniff at country music, and was willing to dedicate 16 hours of my life to watching the Ken Burns documentary. I’m glad I did. The series was a wonderful, poignant history of country music, a uniquely American genre. But in recommending the film to friends I heard myself talking more about the artists than the music. About how sad I felt to hear that as a young boy, George Jones was ripped out of bed by his drunken father who demanded that he sing and whipped him with a belt if he hesitated. And how surprised I was to learn this about Chris Christopherson. That he’d been groomed to follow his father’s career path, a general in the Air Force. Christopherson chose instead to follow his passion — songwriting and singing country music. How he’d taken a janitorial job mopping floors at Colombia Studios to be close enough to recording artists that he could slip them a song or two. Christopherson looked pained as he revealed in the documentary that his mother had disowned him — disgusted by his country music career choice. She’d written that nobody over the age of 15 “listens to that trash,” and told him not to ever come home, not even write, that he was an embarrassment to the family. Johnny Cash was recording with Colombia at the time and someone showed him the letter. “It’s always great to get a letter from home, isn’t it Kris?” Cash told him. Made Christopherson laugh. And then there’s Charlie Pride — an African-American singing country — an anomaly back in the day, and still a rarity. Pride recounted, without an ounce of bitterness, how he was received at an event in Detroit before an audience of transplanted white southerners. Most had heard Pride’s music. None had seen him. Waiting in the wings Charlie heard thunderous applause when the emcee introduced him. He walked onto the stage. You could have heard a pin drop. “Ladies and gentlemen,” said Charlie, “ I realize it’s kinda unique me coming out here on a country music show wearing this permanent tan.” The audience laughed and then applauded. At the end of one of Pride's documentary interviews, he challenged African-Americans to come out of the closet and admit they like country music. I could drink to that.

Perspective can be helpful. I thought about my late mother during the recent power outages. She was one among the hundreds of thousands of women and children evacuated from London to the countryside during World War II — protection from the incessant German bombing.    Although Mother was safe in the country — the bombs had stopped long ago — her memories lingered. During stormy weather, I'd come home from school and follow a thin line of gray smoke drifting from the small room under the stairs where the gas meter was located. There I’d find my mother, sitting in a chair, in the dark, smoking. “When it thunders this bad,” she’d say, waving her Woodbine cigarette, oblivious to the fact she was sitting in a gas cupboard, "it brings back terrible memories of the London bombings. I wouldn't go to the air-raid shelters. People got buried alive in those things. I took my chances in the street." Remembering this last week, as my husband, Jim, and I sat with our knees touching across from each other at the table in our travel trailer parked near the garage, I was grateful. Grateful not only that we have a travel trailer powered by propane gas, one we almost sold in the summer, but that I’ve never suffered as my mother had — no bombs were dropping. Camping in your own backyard may not have the same allure as hooking up in a campground but it can be fun. “Let’s play a game?” I suggested to my husband after he forced down the last piece of chicken he ever hoped to eat. Without having to stand, Jim reached the overhead cupboard and pulled down a spiffy, small leather case. He undid the bronze-colored clasps. We looked at the contents. We looked at each other. We’d forgotten how to play backgammon. The leather case was replaced with a board game appropriately named "Sorry." After one win each we looked at the time. It was 7:30 p.m. Time for bed. I’m obsessive about staying warm. Just ask my hiking friends. Hazel rarely wears a jacket when hiking. Another Jim always shows up in shorts. Doesn’t he know that little English boys couldn’t wait for the day when they were allowed to swap their short trousers for long ones? I arrive, regardless of the temperature, wearing a wool hat, long pants, a jacket and mittens. My friends swap sidelong glances but are too polite to laugh. I blame growing up in a cold house, in a damp country, for my obsession with warmth. A coal fire in the downstairs living room was the only form of heat. I would scratch patterns in the ice that formed on the inside of the windows. Luxuries were few in those post-war days, but we did have hot water bottles. The kettle would whistle its heart out just before bedtime as several of us eight kids, old enough to handle boiling water, lined up to fill their rubber bottles. The rest of our little bodies might shiver but our feet were warm. Being without power has certainly heightened my appreciation of it, but I’ve always been conservative about using utilities. This trait is thanks to my childhood experiences when the gas and electricity to most houses were controlled through coin-operated meters. Each silver shilling inserted into these meters allocated a specific amount of the utility. Naturally, the gas would go off when Mother was cooking the Sunday roast beef, and the lights would go out when we were watching a particularly thrilling part of a television program. Sensible families would insert several shillings in their meters at one time to guard against these inconveniences. Our family was so broke that we barely managed to find one shilling when needed. In fact, we resorted to counterfeiting. The copper-colored ha’penny (half a penny), was worth one twenty-fourth of a shilling and was only slightly larger. My Irish step-father, who thought it was his duty to pay back the English in large and small ways, taught us how to file down the ha’penny to the size of a shilling using a large metal rasp. Hence, when the man from the utility company arrived to collect the shillings, payment for utilities received, us kids scampered out the back door. Fortunately, I'm now all grown up and have resources. To compensate for my cold childhood I’ve spoiled myself with an electric blanket. The problem is it doesn’t work very well without electricity. Last week I needed my childhood hot water bottle. Absent that, however, a kind hairy guy with a beard, who has on occasion been mistaken for Santa Claus, jumped into our bed first and warmed my place. Christmas came early this year.

"Ride This Train,” sang the late Johnny Cash. He didn’t have to tell me twice. I love the train. I was indoctrinated early in life. Built in 1857, and still operating, is the Midland Road Railway Station in my hometown in the East Midlands. One hour after boarding the train, wearing stiletto heels and a beehive hairdo, a girlfriend and I would be transported from our market town where the shops shut at 6 p.m. to London, the city where the Queen hangs out. And where, judging from the nighttime crowds we saw, nobody goes to bed. So my train memories were pleasant ones. Before I moved to the Auburn area, I lived in Sacramento and nurtured my love of trains by taking the Coast Starlight from Sacramento to Santa Barbara to see our son and his family. Dean left Sacramento for Cal Poly University in San Luis Obispo after graduating high school. He graduated from college and I hoped he’d come home. He didn’t. He went on to earn post-graduate degrees at UC Santa Barbara. No amount of coaxing could get him to return home. I’d detect a suppressed giggle whenever he’d telephone me during the summer months and ask what the temperature was. There were a couple of ways I could’ve traveled to Santa Barbara to visit Dean instead of riding the train. I could have flown. I’d be in the air for 90 minutes and another 90 minutes behind the wheel of a rental car headed north. But I avoid flying whenever possible. I could’ve driven the total distance which would’ve taken three times longer. But my husband likes to drive and I’m a horrible passenger. I chose instead to shake, rattle and roll my way along the beautiful California coastline for 11 and a half hours! Yes, that’s how much I love trains. The one disadvantage of traveling by train, as it is with any public transportation, is you have to deal with people, in close quarters. Some of them can be “a bit funny,” as my mum used to say, and she didn’t mean humorous. One of these “funny” people sat across from me on another of my trips to Santa Barbara. The poor woman was flailing her arms and talking to herself. I know I should be compassionate when it comes to dealing with people who have challenging mental issues, but I grew up with eight siblings and learned the art of self-preservation the hard way. There’s communal seating in the train’s dining car. I envisioned delicately sipping my soup while trying to avoid being slapped in the gob by a lunch companion who evidently enjoyed conducting a symphony. I slithered out of my seat and headed for the dining car. I beckoned to an attendant and whispered my concern about a potential hazardous seating arrangement. He nodded, gave me an understanding smile that told me this wasn’t his first rodeo. I returned to my seat. When my lunch number was called, I swayed my way back to the dining car. A waiter greeted me with a smile and steered me to a table where a mother and her two young children were seated. The kids spent the entire lunchtime time slapping at each other, and their food. Mother was oblivious. The orchestra conductor suddenly didn’t look so bad. When I wasn’t avoiding unpleasant encounters, I read. On one trip I brought along my favorite author, Bill Bryson, who writes funny stories about travel. This particular book was "A Walk in the Woods." It was published some time ago, and a movie was made starring Robert Redford as Bill, and Nick Nolte as Katz, his old friend, and unlikely hiking partner. Neither man is cut out for this 2,000-mile-long trudge along the Appalachian Trail. As you can imagine, there are plenty of laughs. And laugh I did — loud and often. Tears spilled down my cheeks. I made choking sounds trying to control myself. Out of the corner of one wet eye, I could see passengers ever-so-slowly sliding out of their seats, never to return. I heard someone complain that people were crowding into the sightseeing lounge. I pulled myself together and headed for the dining car. “What’s going on?” I asked the dining car attendant. He leaned towards me and whispered, “There’s some woman two cars back who appears to be having a nervous breakdown. She’s sobbing hysterically while reading a book.” Well, I thought, my nose rising slightly, my mum was right. There certainly are some "funny" people who ride the train.

I was intrigued. A casual conversation with Diane, a former co-worker, at a retiree’s luncheon, included mention that her mother-in-law, Peggy, was a braillist — a person who transcribes sighted material into braille. As a child, I remember the postman delivering stacks of massive braille books to my half-brother, Malcolm. But I knew nothing about the braille process. Malcolm was my mother's ninth child. His eyes, like those of all newborns, didn’t focus the first few weeks of his life. Weeks turned into months. The baby’s eyes continued to roll from side to side. Mother fitted him with glasses when he was 4 months old. He’d sit in his pram, propped up with pillows, a pair of thick spectacles resting on his tiny nose. Mother would not, could not, accept that her child couldn’t see. Malcolm was 6 months old when my mother finally faced the reality she had tried so hard to deny. Her youngest son would never “... see the sun rise over Shannon, nor watch the sun go down in Galway Bay” — scenes from the Irish song she’d croon to him. Due to guilt or compassion, my mother never disciplined Malcolm. The rest of us got our ears boxed for misbehaving. Malcolm had the occasional “fit,” as us kids would call it. He’d grab anything he could reach — ashtrays and ornaments — and lob these missiles around the living room. We all learned to duck. Doctors urged Mother to place Malcolm in the Sunshine Home for the Blind — a boarding school and former estate in the next county. He would learn braille, Mother was told, and be around other blind children. Sid, Malcolm’s father, persuaded her to take a tour of the home. None of us thought Mother would agree to part with her then 5-year-old son. Mother’s evaluation of the Sunshine Home surprised us. “Staff at the school is lovely to the children,” she told us when she returned. She marveled at how much the children could do despite their disability. “They can dress themselves, and tie their own shoes,” she’d reported, amazed. Mother had refused to let Malcolm do anything for himself. Much to everyone’s surprise, and quite frankly, relief, at age 5, Malcolm went away to the boarding school. He learned braille, later attended college and eventually worked at a bank in a neighboring town. Decades later in a spacious workshop built next to a house on manicured acreage in Auburn, I’m learning from Diane’s mother-in-law, Peggy, about those braille books that opened a world to my brother, and millions of others. Peggy, I was surprised to learn, began her career selling Avon and eventually became a district manager, retiring after 20 years. When she started it was door-to-door sales in the days of "Ding, dong, Avon calling." “To stay busy, and do something worthwhile after retirement, I trained to become a volunteer braillist. Later, I realized I could supplement my retirement income. I’ve been doing this work for the last 30 years,” said the petite 87-year-old. “What does a braillist do, exactly?” I asked. Peggy walked me over to a large whiteboard on the wall of her workroom. Thirty projects were listed along with the braille subcontractors assigned to these jobs. And, surprise. More than half of the subcontractors are former Folsom Prison inmates, trained by Peggy when they were incarcerated. As certified braillists, former prisoners are able to work from home and immediately earn an income, increasing their chances of a successful transition. The national recidivism rate for prisoners within three years of release is 67 percent; within five years it’s 76 percent. “For braillists,” said Peggy proudly, “the rate is less than 1 percent.” Back to my question about the braille process. Peggy picked up a standard textbook. "I mail books like these to the braillist. They translate the book into braille on a computer. The completed braille transcription is transmitted to my computer for printing. I followed Peggy into a back room where several oversized printers were installed. She lifted a cover to reveal the embossing pins that convert the braille documents into raised dots on heavy paper that can be read by the blind. Thank you, I thought, to Frenchmen Charles Barbier and Louis Braille. Barbier was a soldier in Napoleon’s army. He invented “night writing” — a way for soldiers to safely communicate in the dark. Louis Braille, a young boy who lost his sight due to an accident, refined that process into today’s braille. Before I left, Peggy said, with a smile, that a former inmate told her that becoming a certified braillist was a turning point in her life. “She realized she was now doing something to help someone. Each time she translated a sighted book to braille, she was conscious of enabling a blind child to read.” The same could be said about Peggy.