A special family lived around the corner from us at our beach house. How were they special? There were three children when most other families had two children.

As a surprise to everyone, including the parents in the family, later on there got to be four children. That was one way they were special. But there were other ways, too.

Other families lived up the block and down the block but my mother and father were friendly with the mother and father of this family because they had higher I.Q.’s and were more intellectual. The father was a doctor,…