On July 27, Happy #53, Mooch!

Vic, I've loved you since the day Aunt Teresa brought you home from the hospital back in Mansfield in 1953. Well, okay, I don't actually remember her bringing you home, even though I was eight years old but I do remember moving to 3002 North 23rd Avenue in Phoenix in 1955. Of course, by then you were two and I was 10. I always felt like an older sister and I adored you. Around that time is when I nicknamed you Mooch. I know to others it must sound like a negative nickname but you and I know that isn't so. You're my Mooch. You always have been. Always will be. I remember carrying you around on my hip and playing with your baby finger because it was so soft and cuddly, like you. Remember the picture your mother had taken by Olan Mills Studio (now there's a blast from the past!) when you were around five? Your nearly platnium hair was curled so pretty and you wore a squaw dress with a turquoise bracelet around your tiny wrist. Everyone loved you and you loved everyone and 53 years later, nothing seems to have changed in that department! You were so active in grade school and, especially in high school at good old West High. I remember one early morning being awakened by a gaggle of your girlfriends who were there to surprise you because you had been selected to be on the cheer squad. Such gaiety. Such happiness. We've been through a lot together since then, Mooch. We've had our ups and downs, our being together and our silences. How could either of us forget our San Francisco friend Asher Rubin and the brunch he and Peggy gave when we tried lox for the first time? One of the last times I saw you in California was the weekend that Princess Diana died. I drove to Manhattan Beach to meet you and Bonnie for lunch at Cisco's on Highland. Of course, we have to count as a highlight the time that you and Jack came to NBC in Burbank when I worked for Linda Mancusco. I remember how excited we all were to be on the set of "Saved By the Bell," and how gracious Linda was to you and Jack. Her death in '03 of breast cancer still saddens me deeply. She was only 44 and was adored and respected by so many. I was lucky to know her. And then you were in Phoenix in '98 or '99 and stayed at The Phoenician and invited me and my friend Laurie over to swim and have lunch. Remember, we threw caution to the wind and ordered a pricey, exotic poolside drink and shared secrets? Vic, I know that no one loves me more than you do. But did you know that I love no one more than I love you? If not, then you do now, on this birthday and every birthday to come...may there be many. And isn't it grand to know that when the time comes for us to leave this old rickety planet, we'll spend eternity together, laughing, telling jokes, reveling in what our time here was like? Praise Jesus! Oh, by the way, you must know that possibly the grooviest (sorry, I had to say it) gift I ever received came from you back in 1990. You catapulted me "over the moon" when you sent a big box full of all of the letters, birthday, anniversary and postcards I ever sent you, beginning when I left Phoenix to live in San Francisco in the late 60s. I bet there are 100 letters and cards. And as if that weren't enough you had saved each envelope with each letter! So I have a record of where I lived from the return address, the date it was sent and where you lived. You deserve the award for "best present given." Thank you, Mooch. Thank you, God, for giving us Vicki.

A Picture Says a Thousand Words