Sponsoring the Ala-tot

ONE July morning in 1961 my wife awoke early and complained of severe abdominal pains. I rushed her to the hospital, where she suddenly disappeared down an antiseptic corridor while a bossy old woman in a starched uniform ordered me into a waiting room. For two hours I read an upside-down copy of a year-old magazine and carried on a jerky conversation with a young man who stood with one foot on a radiator and scowled out the window. He was much younger than I, yet it was his third experience of this sort. I could not bring myself to admit that it was my first time, even though I was almost thirty-six.