I read this piece to our Women's Breakfast group at a CCB convention. Vita Zavoli recently reminded me of it; I was so touched that she vividly remembers these several years later. So let me take you back to July 3, 1950 when I was six years old.

I have on my blue dress. I know it because it has a nice feel to it. It is dotted Swiss: dots like braille, but the dots on my dress are too far from each other to say anything.

I get to wear my nice dress because it's Denny's birthday today; I'm six but he's only three, and we get two sparklers each a day before the fourth of July because it's his birthday.

I'm taking Diane for a walk in her buggy. Mommy says I'm a big help keeping the baby quiet while she bakes Dennie's cake. I go very carefully down our steep driveway. At the bottom but before the steep part that goes into the street, I turn left down 11th Ave. I go very slowly so that if we hit something it's very gentle and doesn't wake Di up.

At the corner we turn left down 28th Street. The sidewalk is smooth but the edge is rough. So I keep on the smooth and if I feel the wheels on rough I move back left a little. Donna calls hello as I pass her house. She's our friend. We met her when Dennie cracked donna's little girl Heidi in the head with his bat. Donna is funny. She says "Deeny" not "Denny" like we do.

At the corner I turn left again. Of course I'm never going to cross a street with baby Di. I know just to walk around and around our block. I don't like this part of the block. It's where the lady grabbed me and shook me and yelled in my face that mommy was irresponsible for letting a blind child out alone with a baby! I cried all the way home. Mommy said lots of people don't know what blind children can do. She said she knows all the things I can do and that I show people all the time. She laughed and said, "Besides Donna makes sure to tell all the neighbors "that Judy Girl really knows how to take that baby for a walk." She said she would find that lady and talk to her. I'm still a friend when I walk on this block.

Now another left turn and a really nice smooth sidewalk. We can go a little faster here because it's so wide. There's lots of grass on the right so I know when the buggy needs to go left.

Back to 11th ave. our very steep street. I have to pull hard on the buggy's handle to keep it from running away. There is a little flat place, then our house. Di is still asleep. She is too little for sparklers. Maybe Daddy will let Den and me have her 2 sparklers for Den's birthday.