Family Life and Marriage
A Great Beach Read by San Alini, “A Husband by Midnight” — A Review
Betty Sallas is single and successful editor at a New York City publisher. She awakens on the morning of her 40th birthday in the grips of a hangover to find a hulk of guy in her kitchen, a guy who came to fix the plumbing at her mother’s request as it turns out. Something about…
Read MoreMy Dad Believed in the Manly Art of Self-Defense. No Boxing Gloves for Grampa
#selfdefense #boxing #grandfather #grandchildren May 28 is the anniversary of my father’s death. I wrote about the days leading up to his death in an earlier article for this web site. My dad died on May 28, 1980, after a debilitating series of small strokes that diminished him in degrees until he was barely there…
Read MoreRadiance, Phil Kenney’s Debut Novel, Deals with Age Old Questions of Life, Death and Fulfillment
Phil Kenney’s debut novel Radiance is a passionate family history that spans three generations until it settles on Jimmy and Daisy, mother and son, as the central characters. Kenney, a poet, knows that triumph and tragedy are defined by the context that we set for ourselves. The context can be as narrow as parent and…
Read MoreAdoption Papers were Ready for Signature. My Son Needed to be Baptized First.
The following is an installment in a series of posts dealing with the options available to the underage parents of a child born out of wedlock during the 1950’s, before the advent of outpatient abortions, the pill, and a dramatic change in the public view with regard to sex prior to marriage. My son was…
Read MoreAdoption Was an Unwed Teenage Mother’s Option Before Out Patient Abortion Became Available
#adoption #1950s #teenagepregnancy Adoption was a commonplace practice in the 1940’s and ‘50’s before the introduction of the pill and outpatient abortion service. The children who lived next door to my family when I was a boy were adopted, all four of them. Kids in the neighborhood thought nothing of it. If questioned, parents responded…
Read MoreDeadly Portfolio Holds Autobiographical Material. This In Memory of My Father.
My father died on May 28, 1980. I was in Oak Ridge, TN at the time. I returned to my motel room after dinner and found the message light blinking on the telephone, as I tell the story in my novel, Deadly Portfolio: A Killing in Hedge Funds. In the book, the man taking the…
Read MoreWhen a Million Is Not Enough — Part II ( Margin is not the Answer)
Everyone saw it coming except my client. Big Dan pulled up stakes and left. My client had backed him until her million dollar nest egg was severely depleted and her own well being in jeopardy. The margin loan (See Part I) was not being repaid. It was on the books at a rate of 8.50%.…
Read MoreStepparent Seen by Adult Children as Parent’s New Partner But Not as a Stepparent.
#stepparent #blendedfamily #stepchild A reader from New York asked if I planned on commenting about the role of a stepparent when the stepchildren have left the home and are established as adults on their own. Great question! Great suggestion! There is not a whole lot of actual parenting to be done once children have moved…
Read MoreStepparent and Natural Parent Parenting Styles–Good Predictor for the Marriage Itself.
#stepparent #parentingstyle #blendingfmailies #secondmarriage I appreciate the responses to my postings about the role of a stepparent and step parenting. Several readers have shared their experiences, and I am including three of them here with comments as another installment of this series. When Parenting Styles Clash An Atlanta man wrote: Our blended family consisted of…
Read MoreDime Stores for Valentines and Other Gifts.
#valentine #fiveanddime #dimestore A dime store was a dime store in the 1940’s. No two ways about it. Scott’s called themselves a “five-and-ten-cent store.” Newberry’s went one better. See the sign in the picture to the right that has been copied from a postcard as it was in the mid-1940’s. Newberry’s proclaimed they were a…
Read More