Not to mention the horror stories in class: the woman who kept saying "I nearly died" with the same smile a man might have (not this one) saying "Yeah, ran her off the road, flipped her three times, and landed upright with the beer still in my hand." Hearing about strange women's stools is unsettling enough (although my ears did involuntarily prick up on the question of whether hemorrhoids retreat as well as advance -- the glacial theory) without the harrowing tales. The woman with the breech, whose doctor, in righting it, held on to the fetus and turned her upside down. the husband who, while his wife was in labor, went out for Chinese. The woman who backhanded her mate across the birthing room for telling her to imagine she was on a beach when all she could conjure up was a high-cut suit and stretch marks.

As a result, my "in, one two," streches to "ten, twelve" before I realize I'm not taking in any air and loudly gasp for breath like a drowning man no one in the room would save. (The men wouldn't dare cross their wives at this point.) She, of course, I add with pride, breathes perfectly and can even alternate nostrils without pinching, a natural Kundalini (but we always knew she had control).

Of course I believe it's worth it, but, in those quiet stretches when I should be respiring, I do sometimes examine my own family in that light and, I must say, I can't entirely believe we were. I think my folks should have lived a little! Instead of conceiving Clayton (it would have been around New Year's 1936), why not wing off to Rio? In June of '38, in lieu of Howard, why not France, beating the heat and crowds of jackbooted German tourists? Superseding Arthur (Happy New Year again, dear, 1943), a steamship cruise, where the romance and intrigue that Arthur never would provide stalk Dave and Gerry Feldman all the way to the Lesser Antilles and back, and then, when tired of traveling, they would just have started me (1948 -- June -- The Washington Park Lagoon?).

...And Gasp!