Specter spectre

The first year I was in college, I lived in a dormitory on 20th and Cherry streets in Philadelphia. At some point during my tenure there, an elderly woman who lived nearby was sent off to a nursing home. Apparently she'd lived in her apartment for a long, long time, because soon an enormous Dumpster appeared on our street.

The Dumpster would quickly fill up, and be emptied, and then fill up again. All the detritus of this woman's lifetime, flowing out of her apartment, and into the Dumpster, and then away.

Yes, it was very sad. But if you're an 18-year-old art school chick, it wasn't that sad. On went the combat boots and in I went, eager to find ... whatever. Treasure.

Anyway, this was all just a very circuitous way of telling the story of how I came to possess this beauty. It's from 1965, which I believe is the very first time Arlen Specter ran for public office, at age 35. Neat, right?

Arlen died early Sunday at his Philadelphia home, from complications from non-Hodgkin lymphoma. he was 82.