Too many full moons in July? (Where’s the editor?)

Too many full moons in July?  (Where’s the editor?)

In the carefully edited life of Pamela Gilbert-Bugbee, you get the mistaken impression that I grew up in Riverdale (NW Bronx) and only attended conspicuously numbered public schools before graduating from the High School of Music and Art — well, before  it got renamed.

Of course, everyone needs a cut-off somewhere.  And even though I aced the fourth grade spelling bee at Village School in Syosset, I bury this victory because only my relatives, on a need-to-know basis, can confirm that from kindergarten through sixth grade, I attended a conspicuously un-numbered public school. Outside of the city! (On Long Island —)

Editors — and we really  all are, if  we choose, can find ways to make our stories a bit more appealing. Now, if only I could immodestly mention my spelling victory without having to drag in the part about where it happened.  You see when my family moved from Syosset to Riverdale — the Bronx, if you prefer — the same summer my mother bought me my first first pin-striped man-tailored shirt (a  minor but tasty memory I mention to few), I was reborn!  My city girl credentials came alive! (Have you ever heard Natalie Portman mention a word about having lived in Syosset — which she did before Harvard?)

And,  have you ever heard such nonsense as two full moons during the same month of July?  (Too many moons at a time!  Strike one out!)

A little personal editing, you understand, can roll the crumbs off  the couch and illuminate your life so nicely.

Recently, while floating in the Kauna’oa Bay — where?  Note the number of eyebrows that are suddenly airborne at the mention of such an esoteric spot that the rest of us call the Mauna Kea Beach.  It’s  all in the editor’s wording:  turning the ordinary (not that there’s anything even slightly ordinary about the Mauna Kea beach) into something that catches the ear!  And when I’m floating there and meet up with unusual suspects, I’ve been known to tune down the part about all my years in Oregon, remain hush hush about Syosset, LI , and simply cut corners here and there as I see fit.

About a year ago, I decided to throw in a citation about having been born at the ever tony Doctors Hospital. I was born there simply because it was one of the only places back in 1952 that welcomed “natural childbirth,” my mother’s avid preference.  Forget the posh part, forget the way it makes my birth certificate sizzle, I was born right across the street from where the mayors call home –Gracie Mansion.  And so with the right audience, one impressed by hospital name dropping, I’m ready with a lovely detail to make as sharp an impression, I hope, as discovering another blue moon.

 

 

 

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