Twins, I have had twins on my mind for the past weeks. My neighbor has twin girls about six months old that she pushes up and down the street, trying to keep them cool in the summer heat. Then twin fawns appeared in our yard, orphans, that cried first, sad mournful sound, but soon they were just seen quietly nibbling on grass, way too young to survive without a mother's milk. But they did and they still are around. Then an invitation to my twin sisters' birthday this weekend. And most surprising, a book, a wonderful book that weaves the lives of twins in a gothic type plot, The Thirteenth Tale. Helene was reading this book at the lake two weeks ago, could hardly put it down. So I went to the library, and likewise "had my nose in it" (as Bucky would say) until I finished the more than 400 pages in three days. I used to do this all the time, but lately my reading, like my walking, has slowed down.

Twins. I was eight when my twin sisters were born, did not know my mother was pregnant, and my mother did not know she was having twins - a little like a gothic mystery. But my mother came home with two babies, two girls who at first wore bead bracelets "a" and "b". They were small, I don't remember the birth weights, but I do remember my mother relating a scene in which the nurse said to Doctor Supple, "You are not going to let these babies go home so soon, are you?" and as my mother proudly announced, he said "Betty is a good mother. They will be fine." So there we were with two new members of the family - Kathleen and Maureen. Twins.

I had never seen twins before. Two perfect babies that looked exactly alike. I have a picture somewhere of me holding them soon after, one in each arm with a very serious look on my face. When they grew older, I would push one in a carriage, and my girlfriend would take the other in a carriage and off we would go...probably only nine or ten years old ourselves. But twins are magic and everyone smiles, wants to know their names and of course always ask "are they identical"? which always seemed stupid because they looked exactly alike. Just a little difference in their smile, or the look in an eye. In photographs it was harder to tell, and we would go back and forth...that's Kathleen, no that's Maureen, Wait, I think it IS Maureen. No it's Kathleen.
Until finally we just said, who cares, it is the twins.

That's how it is with twins....they are individuals, but you tend to pair them, think of them in the same way. The Thirteenth Tale had an evil twin....we didn't have that. Kathleen was kind of a tomboy, wore cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. And Maureen cared more for dolls, once getting hurt from a doll. The arm had come off. In those days they were wired on and somehow the wire cut her mouth, tongue, something bad. That's the thing with twins, you had twice the responsibility, twice the nerve wracking care, but like the old tune used to go "double the pleasure, double the fun, with doublemint doublemint doublemint gum".

Twins. They run in families you know. Grandma Burky had twin sisters (or maybe brothers) she didn't know that until after Bucky had had her twins, having left Europe at an early age. They skip a generation, is the theory. If so, we are due for twins in this family any day now. Wouldn't that be great?

This poor blog has been on a long dry run, end it today with my birthday. 68th birthday...what a ride. There used to be a tv show in the 50's called This is Your Life and Ralph Edwards would surprise a person, usually a celebrity, by reading from a big book a bio of their life, bringing in people from their past that they hadn't seen for years. Some of the surprised lifers would be less than happy to have their life paraded in front of them, but most seemed to enjoy it. 68 years - who would they bring out and what would they say?

I just had a email that there was a comment from Kathy L on facebook that said "happy birthday" - so that's one person they could bring out...tell about when we worked together at IBM, the escapade when we didn't get a raise, so we would come in a half an hour early and be "greeters". We would stand near the door, drinking a cup of coffee from the cafeteria and just say "Good Morning" to everyone, making overtime for no work. No one ever challenged us..I guess there was nothing in the Manager's Manual about greeters.

Then I got a birthday card from Timmy's sister Meg. Meg could come out and tell us about our fun in Florida...one New Year's Eve her husband Bob was playing in a band and they played a song with the line "with a girl named Lindy Lou" and I got up on a picnic table to dance. Now with these knees I have a hard time sitting at a picnic table.

Then there was my 60th birthday party at the Black Swan, with Shockwave, wearing an UPS uniform came to the door..."package for Linda Murphy, package for Linda Murphy". Maria had borrowed the uniform from a friend whose husband had worked for UPS. Shockwave had a boom box, plugged it in, and started to Shock Wave, dancing, throwing off the uniform, bobbing and weaving in front of me. My nephew John grabbed his three daughters to escape before Shockwave went too far, and Erin screamed all the way out, "But we haven't had cake yet, we need to have cake". Shockwave stopped at his Scooby Doo underwear, but he would be a good one to bring on stage.

Chrissy could tell about our adventures in Ireland, driving the little red rental car on the wrong side of the road. Once the car was too close to a stone wall, and a long scratch appeared, we used red nail polish to disguise it. Or the time in Provincetown when we were the only women in a restaurant. "Look Chrissy," I said pointing to a figure near the bar, "There's another woman."
Chrissy looked and answered, "Loggy, that's a man dressed like a woman."

68 years is a long time. I can remember when jet planes were something special, rattling the windows of the house, and we would run out to see the stream they left in the sky. Or go up to the old schoolyard to watch Sputnik make it's orbit over our house. The inventions - air conditioning, TV, video games, cell phones, span the years, as well as I Like Ike, the Nixons, the tragedies of the Kennedy boys, Bill Clinton's cigar and now Obama. Like I said, it's been a ride and I'm waiting for the next turn in the road.