Visiting a stellar mate was also definitely in order. Stuart (aka Donnie) and I chugged on the streets and back roads of Ireland trying to sign people up to sponsor children in Uganda (think Sally Struthers’ ads with the kids with flies in their noses) and to support Ireland’s homeless. Thanks to Stuart, I survived my short stint in this wild profession.

It was time to visit him on his home territory: England. Land of the BBC, great British comedy, perfect rock n’ roll,Winston Churchill, football, Imperialism, the Royal Navy and that eternal sense of optimism that has passed on to the American spirit.

I had to visit Poland to see my grandparents’ roots. Poland, prone to tragedy, the land of sorrow and of emigrés who have had to escape from so many atrocities, the culminating blow being the Holocaust.

Now I can reconcile two very disparate pasts to construct myself.