It was May 14th 1971, my seventeenth birthday. I was stuck in the restaurant kitchen at chi chi Bullocks’ Department store in Sherman Oaks, California, working the early dinner shift for Tuesday’s weekly designer fashion show. It sucked being young and poor, but restaurant work was a good source of rent and provided meals every shift; two blessings for an only child in the recession of the 70’s living with a single, bipolar mom. I reached up, tore the sole remaining ticket off the stain...
