Okay, I can't be the only one who shared the identical Easter dress with her kid (or older) sister. It was always a big deal -- the annual march to J.C. Penney, the tart feel of new fabric on our skins, the tissue paper and pins to carefully remove so those skins were prickle-free. Why did Mom dress Julie and I as sailor girls this particular Easter? Well, we lived just a few miles from the beach, not too far from the Queen Mary, the old, gorgeous ship, newly retired from her life as veritable mistress of the high seas. Back in the 1930s, the Queen sailed to and fro New York City -- my mom's home town -- and Southampton, England. Mom, as a teenager, watched the shimmering ship on many a beach walk. Did she ever dream the Queen would follow her to sunny California decades later? That her eldest daughter, her sailor girl, would dance on the Queen Mary's moon-lit decks the night of her high school prom? Life gets measured in dresses, doesn't it?
Maybe it all started this Easter.
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