Did I win the genetic lottery, or the sperm/egg dance? I am not sure which, but I am eternally grateful for what I got and didn’t get at the instant of my conception. I got wit, intelligence and charm―mostly from my mother’s Irish side, and from the Celts who almost certainly bred with the Schindlers of St. Galen. I did NOT get alcoholism and depression―mostly from my dad’s Swiss side. I did get the dicky ticker that sent my mom’s dad to his grave at 54, but lucked out from having been born a half-century later, so that I can be protected by my pacemaker/defibrillator. I apparently dodged my maternal grandmother’s glaucoma; “You’re almost 70. If you don’t have it by now, you’re not likely to develop it,” my optometrist said this week.

Talk about being born on third base! And I, for one, never mistook that for hitting a triple.