donna checked to make sure smoky had enough food then headed out . left to their own devices , most of the students would have went to classes in beat-up blue jeans and a ripped t-shirt . a lone woman broke away from the crowd and hurried down the steps , her eyes on the old man . it took far too long to go around by the road . they would make it now , but only just . in the fall of 1970 , my mother gave birth to her seventh child . 