Apparently, I had never mentioned this in the past fourteen years as there was a bit of shock and awe at the lunch table today. Here goes … As a child, I wore an amulet (a little sack of spices & odds and ends) around my neck (under my clothes & out of sight) to school. This was to ward off both illness and any bad spirits seeking to do some harm. It would seem that my grandmother (the West Indian g’mother who used to read tea leaves for the neighbours) very much insisted that it was of utmost import to wear these. Of course, it made perfect sense to me because it always was … only as I got older and recognized the bizarre looks on the faces of the school doc and school nurse did I think it might be unique. My mother, child of the Irish g’mother, capitulated to this and a few other things to “protect” me because it terrified my g’mother to do otherwise. I say this to put a fine point on the fact that each of us is a product of our upbringing whether it is in terms of attitudes toward others’ religions, customs, clothing, appearance, race, sexuality, education, nationality, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Am I superstitious? You bet your ass, your dog, your house, your last nickel I am. I come by it quite naturally. Am I embarrassed by it? Not in the least. You might wonder if the amulet worked … Well, no great harm ever came by me but I did endure chronic bronchitus until adulthood … so, it worked for evil spirits but not for colds, measles and chicken pox. I never got the mumps, however!!!