Tonight a woman who lives in another state and whom I have known for decades phoned me. She had been drinking and was slurring her words. This dismayed me, as her mother had been a dear friend of mine, and died from alcoholism.
I couldn't get a word in, so just let her talk. After a while she said she wanted to tell me something but didn't want to make me mad. Then she lobbed a bomb my way.

She says when she was a teenager my father made a pass at her and it scared her. I knew my dad (whom I adored) was an old lecher in his old age, but had never heard this before. He's been dead a long time. All I could do was apologize and say I hoped it hadn't ruined her life. Geeze Louise, I'm gonna build a bomb shelter--you never know when an unexpected bomb is gonna come your way out of the blue.

susil