When I was seven years old, we went to Pompeii, the city in Italy that was covered in ash by Mount Vesuvius where it erupted, the famous Pompeii. And it was great. I had never seen ruins before ’cause, I mean, I was seven, and how would you in Michigan? But it was really cool, and I was really a curious seven year old. But at a certain point, I realized that I had gotten interested in something and I had wandered away a little bit, and when I turned around, my parents weren’t there. So, I looked for them, it was not that big a deal. I went around a corner, and I went around a second corner, and then I found my mom. She was wearing the same shirt. She was — I thought she’d worn her hair different that day, but it’s okay, ’cause I walked up behind her and said whatever it was I said. Something like, “Hey, you’ve gotta see the cool thing, it was really neat,” and she turned around and started speaking in Italian and it was very much not my mother.
Now, I don’t know what she was saying, obviously, because I was seven and from Michigan. I don’t know if she was concerned [that] there was a little boy speaking not-Italian with no adults around or what, but I looked at her and my eyes probably got as big as saucers, and I said something like, “Ope, sorry, wrong person, my bad!” and I ran. And went around a corner, went around a couple more corners, maybe down a street, and then found my actual mom and parents. And they never actually knew that I was gone. So I told them what had happened and they’re like, “Oh well, you weren’t gone very long,” they were unconcerned. But for me, that’s when I realized that, uh, I maybe should pay attention more to what my mom was wearing in — on a particular day, on the day I said hello to someone who was not my mother. And that was a fun time. I remember it. It’s a long time ago, but that sticks out in my mind.