When Clark Gable, my mothers childhood idol died in 1961 I saw my mother cry for the first time…and I didn’t understand why. A year later I understood.

(little me)

Early on the Sunday Morning of August 5 1962 I was sitting at the breakfast table eating a bowl of Trix.  With Motion Picture magazine open before me, I was reading all about the adventures of Liz and Dick in Rome. That summer I was so engrossed in the incredible drama and getting a real education at twelve all about morals and Hollywood, and how mean the ladies on my block could be about a divorcee. Liz and my Mother were the most famous divorced women that anyone on my block knew of. Between them they kept the hens of Orchid Street clucking and pecking for hours.  Suddenly in a crackly transistor radio second  Shelly Fabares’ Johnny Angel was cut off by the announcer. “Actress Marilyn Monroe was…