Goshen NY was my birthplace, a town recently described in a NY Times article as "utopian" - and it was. http://tinyurl.com/mth3cxt About 60 miles from NYC, Goshen remains home of the oldest harness racing track in the country and the Harness Racing Museum and Hall of Fame. My own lineage? Italian American Dad and Irish-Swiss-German Mom shaped my perspective as an "only" until age 10 when my one sibling was born. Through my family, I became politically aware from an early age, at first attracted by campaign buttons more than platforms. When I entered the second half of childhood, we moved to a suburb of Albany, NY, the state capital. I attended a private girls' high school miles away from my neighborhood but my best friend lived right around the corner from our house. Imagining life through literature, I read Grapes of Wrath, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, American Tragand Sister Carrie when I was too young understand the content.