WHOM TO THANK?

 I AM SO thankful. Various current problems and reverses notwithstanding, there is a lot of good in my life. Also, I know that gratitude is helpful in maintaining good spirits and equanimity. Particularly in the face of difficulty.

BUT I AM AN ATHEIST.

No, not a namby-pamby agnostic, but a true non-believer. Of course, having been brought up Catholic, more or less, I have plenty of residue and issues. 

So, whom to thank?

Do I thank my crazy, dysfunctional addicted parents for bringing me up the way I am?

I can't thank god, or godess, or godesses--although I do like the image of lots of godesses on high, deciding on our fates. But only the good stuff.

Do I thank the benefactor of my life that got me out of Dodge? That would be Sister Charlotte Marie, my High School Principal at St. Mary's Girls High School in Lynn, Massachusetts. She saw to it that I entered the College of New Rochelle, a scant half hour from Manhattan, after I delivered my daughter to Catholic Charities and her adoptive parents. I never even applied to a school, thinking I would work in a diner and bring up my child in squalor. She got me to New York. What an incredible gift.

Yes. I'll thank her.

SWINGIN' 'TIL THE END--DOTTIE DODGION

 Dottie Dodgion dies at 90.

Famous jazz drummer I never heard of. She didn't like to do solos! Have you ever heard of a drummer who didn't? Well. 

She hardly ever did solos, 

and when she did, her solo approach "came from being a singer.

I'd hear the melody inside my head, so the rhythms I laid down always followed the song form of whatever tune I played."

Kidnapped by her drummer father at the age of 5--he had left the family when she was 2-- she toured strip joints and roadhouses with him and his band 'til she was 7.

Her mother had remarried and her step father raped her. He went to jail for 20 years.

She spent her weekends with her dad at Streeets of Paris, a strip clup in San Francicco.

Gradually her singing gave way to drumming, and she worked with such greats as Charles Mingus, and Nick Esposito. Marriages and breakups ensued.

Benny Goodman hired her and her third husband, she thoughit was just to jam. But he put her on stage. For ten nights she played with him, then he forgot to mention her name when he listed the band. The audience roared in protest,, and asked her name. After the long standing ovation they gave her, Benny Goodman's manager whispered, "Bye," in her ear on her way out.

She was fired for getting more applause than her boss.