Looking Out My Back Door: 'Shine on me sunshine, walk with me world'

Back in the day, I loved that song. I suspect it was my “whistling past the graveyard” attempt. Believe me, I was anything but the “Happiest Girl in the Whole USA.” I was full of pretense and misery, unemployed and broke, a single mom, newly divorced.

In those days women bore the onus and responsibility for a “broken marriage.” Men were simply labeled “single and up for grabs.” It was not a pretty place for a woman to be.

So I had a bit of an internal giggle at myself when the words of my once-favorite song looped through my thoughts on the bus from Mazatlan to Guadalajara and, this, 40-some y...