The windshield from a white turquoise and yellow telephone truck was almost smack up against mine.

I looked down and my right leg was twisted grotesquely. The tight jeans looked like sausage casing holding soft matter together.

A voice inside me said, "Don't worry you'll be better than ever!"

Awhile later a man's loud voice told me the "jaws of life" were going to be used to help get me out. Crashing metal and glass. The same voice asked me for some phone numbers. I gave him two.

Again, the voice told me we were going to a hospital with a highly rated trauma center. Unfortunately the closest,  in Glen Cove, did not have the emergency facility my injuries required.

Somewhere in those hours, days, before my eyes opened, a priest said prayers. Family and the closest friends came in crying. Hearing becomes the only sense to hold on to reality.

People brought flowers and stuffed animals. Neither were allowed in ICU. Boyfriend Bill asks me to marry him. He's holding flowers that I recognize as those from a pot on my front porch floor! Gloxinias are not a variety sold in florists.

There were three operations in three days. Two critical. A surgeon wakes me, while I'm rolled around endless corridors, teling me I'm going in for a neck operation. OK - without a sound; he really wasn't expecting me to say "Hell no I won't go!"

I was in and out of consciousness. A friend, Mario, stands by me reading from the Bible. Everyone is angry because he's taking so much time and keeping others from visiting me.

Awake, two or three days later, a halo is affixed  with four screws, one on  each side of the forehead and one screw behind each ear. The surgeon, assistant, and I chatted about gardens and art while horrid white lights shone in my face and the sounds of hammers and wrenches made it feel more like an auto garage than an operating room.

Back to ICU where the only thing to do while lying immobile was watch a TV suspended from the ceiling and yards away.  Most impressive, a familiar ad for Schweppes - you know the one with a close-up of bubbles and clear running liquid - and I'd think, "When will I be able to drink again?" My chart read '"NO LIQUIDS."

Food was a similar story. On the second or third or fourth day, (I wasn't counting) a tray with lasagna was placed beside me. Pushing aside the oxygen tube I proceeded to motion to have someone feed me. Someone else realizes if I ate anything at all I'd definitely choke to death.

One nurse, also named  Bill, brought solace when most of the other caretakers just walked by. It amazed me that it was a man who nurtured me during the most difficult time of my life.

There was little relationship to the outer world; the TV and visitors would come and go never speaking or hinting of Michelangelo!

1958 Jones Beach

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At fifteen, my first subject, Big Sur (1954-55), came from a photo greeting card. Painted on canvas board and using a grid method made it easy to start right in! A little above "painting by numbers." Forever imprinted on the cortexes of  memory, that last stroke of cadmium orange symbolized the setting sun an eternal horizon. Chilled, ecstatic, painting modified, mesmerized and invisible chained me.

"You can become an Art Teacher...that's it!" Mr. D let me know that women do not go far in the art world. I wondered what he thought about his situation. All HE did was teach high school art! I decided it was a challenge.

As a graduation present, Aunt Rose and Uncle Tony invited me to join them with cousins Juanita and Tony on a ocean-faring vacation to Europe for two months!  

This was met with great anticipation and planning! Regents, finals, the Senior Prom, graduation and now a wardrobe to assemble for this First Class trans-Atlantic crossing and European tour.

I took fabric swatches from each of the handmade outfits and glued them alongside my fashion illustrations. Mom had made each one according to my wishes. One in particular, a green and white checkered gingham, was painted with a black and white wash just like the Lord and Taylor newspaper advertisements. It consisted of a simple two piece sleeveless blouse and bouffant skirt. No exposed shoulders or pants allowed in Italy mind you. I packed sweaters to cover up any errant skin and scarves for my head to wear in the churches and other sacred buildings.

Matching luggage, including a rectangular cosmetic piece, all in hard gray Samsonite, was a gift from my parents. Very, very heavy. An elephant could stand on it or so the manufacturer said!

We drove up to our pier in New York City; a cavernous wooden structure with two open sides, one to enter and walk up the gangplank and the other our port towards the ocean. The Queen Fredricka looked enormous, two stacks and three levels above water. A festive bon voyage party took place in our main cabin, a two room suite for my aunt, uncle and younger male cousin. Glad I was going, not like most of the others having to say, "Goodbye, Bon Voyage!" Juanita and I shared a small cabin with a bathroom, double bed and dresser. 

All the women in first class dressed in gowns and jewels for 6 course dinners every evening; my prom dress came in handy. A blue silk organza, strapless with many crinolines underneath. The men dressed in formal attire and even the younger males wore suits and ties. Our captain invited us to dine with him and other officers for one special dinner. By day we swam, played obligatory shuffle board, skit shooting was fun and in between Juanita and I paraded up and down the gleaming decks pretending that the smooth and handsome "foreign" sailors were invisible to us. 

Our port of call, Naples, had a definitive blueness to it; the sea and sky joined in turquoise and azure. Unfortunately we were detained from touring upon arrival by a certain "tourista" bug. Uncle Tony was laid up with that and Juanita had broken out in a minor skin rash. 

After a day of rest we set out by chauffeured car to Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius. There were more donkeys and carts than cars, and many people were "crippled" and in rags. I began to see and feel very different pieces of the world all in one day. The total opulence of the liner and hotel had now dissolved before me into dusty roads, begging children and beautiful, but decaying Italian villas. We drove to the top of the volcano and then walked to the crest of the crater with trepidation; I did not want it to start erupting while anywhere near it. 

Pompeii mesmerized me from the moment I stepped onto the  stones that made up the pavement throughout the excavated city. As if in a fantasy; we strolled past crumbled columns, mosaics and horrors... a solidified and contorted dog's body caught (79 AD) as if frozen in rock. The Kodack photos I took could not do justice to the richness of the ochre and sienna colors. Few, if any, encounters with other tourists allowed me the peace of mind to pretend that I was present in 56 A.D. when Mt. Vesuvius poured out hot lava and ash. 

Another day trip to Corleto Monforte, Provincia di Salerno to visit our "family" was an awakening of sorts and also somewhat frightening. Large pigs held us at bay on the narrow stone streets that coiled through the ancient towered village. While at the large table dining, family pets, guinea pigs, scurried under our feet. They were probable another dinner, but no one had the heart to tell us. Toddlers ran around without diapers, not a baby bottle in sight. Everyone was solicitous of the "rich" American relatives. There was one house  in the process of construction that looked like a more recent vintage. Apparently they were the most wealthy and or politically powerful family around.

From Naples we took a train to Rome. At noon we went to St. Peter's Square and waited for Pope Pius XII. Vendors clamored around us with their religious souvenirs. Rosaries, prayer books, holy regalia for

We looked up from our place in a sea of people until he appeared at a little window and blessed the throng...and that was that! Upon entering the Church of St. Peter's ; I was impressed by the huge spaces both void and gold-filled. There were areas both dark and noisy. Then as we paraded single file past Michelangelo's Pieta, I fell desperately in love. Marble melted into a whitish gray flesh, the two faces emoting sadness and agony as befit the situation. I touched the cold stone to cross the chasm of time as if his hand and mine were one, and wept silently. 

What a switch! Within minutes my fledgling emotions turned to confusion and dismay. There were many altars within the bowels of the church at which masses being said at different stages. In one area people sat in folding chairs, in other corners they stood reciting from their Missals, or singing or processing. It seemed like a circus to me; I couldn't concentrate or pray and left feeling betrayed. Rules of behavior that meant confessing a venial sin if we didn't follow them at home were apparently meaningless here. So how could I believe any of it! Wasn't a rule inviolate? And so the end of any lingering belief in one absolute religion.

The Vatican overwhelmed me with it's beyond-human dimensions. I strained to see the paintings on the Sistine Chapel's ceiling. The pace of sightseeing became exhausting, I really couldn't appreciate many of the artifacts that appeared almost endlessly. The trip to the Coliseum was another matter. Large edifices could encompass me; they'd surround me with their ancientness, their other worldliness, their blatant differenceness. The movies became real...Quo Vadis...chariots rushing by, lions and tigers tearing at the gladiators. And then there were all those cats. "Why?" I asked. "Rats!" someone said. "Oh!" So much for my romance with the Coliseum.

Next stop - Florence, city of bridges, The Duomo, Baptistry and Michelangelo's David. I poked my head out the unfettered window of our hotel and savored the view of narrow streets, stucco walls, turquoise shutters and red tiled roofs. Everything matched as if designed by one hand and creative sensibility. Never imagined shopping on a bridge albeit an enclosed one! I bought myself a marchisite pin of a charioteer complete with reins, horse and chariot, and some filigree butterflies. The bridge? Ponte Vecchio.

Beyond belief, our next stop, Venice. Our hotel faced the famous church, San Giorgio Maggiore. It was directly across the canal and looked almost make-believe outlined mysteriously in the morning mist. Domenico Modugno had a major world-wide hit with Volare. It was played everywhere we went and I fell in love with the singer as well as the song. I bought his album to take home with me. 

Gondola (1958) is a black and white wash from one of my photos.

One evening a dark eyed man followed us through the dimly lit cobbled streets as we strolled after dinner. He started a conversation in Italian and then proceeded to hand me his photo on a postcard! Leather and motorcycle a la Brando. I didn't know ordinary people did such things. Maybe he wasn't ordinary. He also gave me another card with the famous balcony of Romeo and Juliet! 

Genoa and Milan our last Italian cities. A cemetery in the former filled with magnificent angels and eerie effigies that recreated the dead, enveloped us as if in a gothic horror movie. Beautiful and otherworldly at the same time. Incredible works of art by anonymous sculptors.

Barcelona, and here was Gaudi...a bench of rocks, pottery shards, glass, etc. We stared up from it to his one completed spire on the Templo Expiatorio de la Sagrada Familia. Again the juxtaposition of ugliness and beauty. We all felt sorry that he died without completing this masterpiece.

Now Paris! Three days for this city certainly put a crimp in our itinerary. The Louvre alone should have been a day on to itself. I did see the Mona Lisa and the Winged Aphrodite. My head was in a whirl; images melded into one another; I just had to leave the museum.

I felt lost without the ability to verbally communicate while in France...at least Italian and Spanish were tongues I had studied. Even a few words would have allowed me to feel related.  When Uncle Tony took us to a very expensive restaurant it was the Parisian models that impressed me. They were so tall, thin and shapely, perfectly dressed and beautiful! 

On to London. No trouble with the language here. A whirlwind of doormen, maids, room service and wait staff. The black umbrellas, suits and top hats impressed me! The food and rain did not.

Finally Belgium...and the train to Brussels for the 1958 World's Fair. We had 30 pieces of luggage to transfer at a five minute stop. Four of us made it while the other two and some of our luggage did not! Eventually everyone arrived at the hotel baggage and all.

We decided to try out a ride. Two Brazilian sailors dressed in pure white and blue held onto Juanita and me as we screamed on my first (and last) roller coaster ride.

Shy and sheltered, I had been on only two real dates during high school. Unfortunately male attention was once again kept at bay by family presence! Nothing to take seriously anyway, my contention.  

The 10 day trip home across the Atlantic was just as opulent, but the excitement and anticipation of going to an unknown destination was missing.

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