Nancy and me

Nancy and me

This is my 1962 high school year book photo on the left. I just came across it googling an old friend. My sister Nancy, who was a junior, is on the right. We had moved from northern Minnesota to Fargo, North Dakota because of my dad’s job for a pipe line company. We detested the move, detested Fargo, & detested being put in a Catholic high school.

Fargo is like tundra & winds howl down from Canada without mercy. They were good years for my mother since she stopped having babies & had a decent house for the first time. We lived across the street from the Mormon temple & our neighbors were quirky Mormons who ran an old folks home & evangelized for health foods–believe it or not, in advance of the times. In US history, healthful practices & preoccupations often associated with religion.

I skipped town for St. Paul, MN as soon as I graduated & never looked back. Nancy stayed to graduate & became a nurse. She began to develop eating disorders that at that time had no name. It was years before they were identified as anorexia & bulimia. She suffered from them for nearly 40 years & died from them in 2001.

We called each other “honey” as kids but grew in very different directions–she becoming quite conservative & me the opposite. It can be said she was not understood & suffered for that. Sometimes you wish you could bring back the past & redo it. You can’t but you can learn from it. May she RIP.

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