Mom and Dad loved music. They listened to orchestral music and were captivated by opera. Dad would meticulously follow along in the score and the libretto was never out of arms reach. I can only imagine the wonderful times they had as a couple, listening together. “When Mike came on the scene, I never got […]
There was a park just outside the grounds of Willowbrook. We took Mike there a lot when we would visit. I remember once, when we seesawed together he got off at the bottom. I would still ride with him, but I was wary of his every move.
The swing set in the back yard had a glider, that’s the best way to describe it. There were two seats, and the riders would sit facing each other, feet on foot rests. Pushing and pulling, in cooperation, would start the ride. Mike never got it. This is Mike standing on that contraption.
My brother Mike went away to Willowbrook, a large mental institution (6000 residents) on Staten Island in New York State, USA. If you search for ‘Willowbrook’ and ‘atrocities’ on the internet, you will get more than 45,000 hits. The horrors were exposed in 1972 after which, New York State took actions that addressed the conditions. […]
In olden days, one would use a cable with a mechanical connection to the shutter release, to take a photograph at a distance (the length of the cable) from the camera. This is what you see below.
