her name for light strokes along the undersides of our forearms. I hated to wake up, so I would pull the covers over my head, eject one arm, and cry to her, “I need sweeswees.” Sometimes she would rouse me by singing her own words to the verse melody of the The Jetsons’ theme song: “Come on, Andrew. Time for schoo-ool. Get out of beh-hed. Don’t be-e a fool.” Downstairs she poured us Cheerios while we listened to a radio show called Harvey in the Morning. Harvey, who a few years later would become the announcer on a kids’ game show called Double Dare, played pop acts like Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Kim Carnes, Todd Rundgren, the Doobies, America, Men at Work. Maybe once an hour he played a stand-up bit by someone like Steve Martin or Richard Pryor, or a skit by Kip Addotta. Mom would pack our lunches and then hand us off to an older girl on the block, Colleen McQueen, who walked us the mile to school. While we were there Mom babysat as a full-time job, watching a few kids whose parents would drop them off at our house on their way to work.
