A Good Place to Start

This is about the endurance of the written word.  As I was walking by the give-away book table at my senior center today, I stopped and smiled.  I had spotted Starting in the Middle by Judith Wax.  Judy and I were friends and neighbors when our children were teens.  Even as Betty Friedan loomed large, we did not yet have "careers."

I watched as Judy began her career in writing.   She wrote movingly about her experiences as a mother whose son had gone off to India to join a cult.  It was published in the New York Times.  Later, she comforted me as I worried about my daughter who was -- alone -- on a protracted trip around the world.

Her poem, The Lovesong of G. Gordon Liddy, made it into Time magazine during the Watergate frenzy.  The book followed.

I have no idea how many copies of Starting in the Middle ever sold.  It's life was cut short, as were the lives of Judy and her husband Shel.   Their plane crashed at O'Hare.  They were on their way to the Los Angeles Book Fair for interviews, readings and publicity.

I just took my copy off the shelf and I'm going to look at it again.  I hope some senior will pick it up too.  I remember it being a very good read.