There was a time – not toooo long along – probably about 4 winters ago around this same Holiday and Christmas time, when I was still morbidly stuck in the LA desert. I was perhaps 73 years old, had already retired from USC (the over-priced University of Southern California) as a theater professor after 31 years, had gotten married for the first time to an Indonesian woman, also 31 years younger than myself at 55 years old, adopted our 8-year-old Indonesian son at age 68, and was still renting at “Lucretia Gardens” in Echo Park, having been in Los Angeles…