Phyllis came from Kansas

We moved around a lot when I was a small boy. So I don't have a clear picture of a particular place called home. But my early memories do include the times my brother Jay and I would watch The Wizard of Oz in the living room of wherever we might be living. I believed that my mother had left a place called Kansas to escape a difficult family. This place she called Kansas, was a flat desolate dust bowl, full of harsh angry adults and bored lonely children. In my mind, my mother might have been Dorthy Gale, except Mom never wanted to return to that dreary home in Kansas. She kept her ruby red slippers and never looked back. Her tales of world travel and misadventure made the land of Oz seem as gray as it appeared on our black and white TV screen. It was years before I realized that when Dorthy came out of the house, Oz was in Technicolor! And it was years later I came to better understand what kept Mom away from her native home and family.