T.S. Eliot, writing in The Waste Land, penned the words, “April is the cruelest month.” In the years since then, there have been many paraphrases and most of them have identified November as “the cruelest month”. In a way I agree, but not completely. I have found over the years that November, more than any other month, is a mixture of laughter and tears, joy and sadness, bleakness and sunshine, and yes even new growth mixed in with the decay. The first time I realized the specialness of the eleventh month of the year was in 1963 when Milan and I chose the 16th day for our wedding. But it was only one year and one week later, in November 1964, that I realized how cruel and cold November could be when my youngest sister, Kay Rowden, died in a car crash out on East Highway 32, a road long known for its own brand of cruelty, with the curves and washboard hills taking their toll on many a car over the years. Kay was 16, and a junior at LHS. Her best friend, Beverly Cole, survived the w