My wife, Joy and I are pulling up stakes and moving to LA. I’m not sure when I will be able to get re-connected to the internet, so I have scheduled setting the beginning of this series, My Brother Michael, a book that I put together over a 15 year period. It remains unpublished. For […]
Yesterday, Dave, my younger brother and I cleaned out Mom’s apartment. She died last week, not long after her 90th birthday. I was able to fly out from California for her party. It was a lot of fun. Mom had a rough night just before I left to go home. Just before my plane took off, I […]
I was really tired yesterday after working with my brother Dave in Mom’s apartment. We drove back to Dave’s house and I couldn’t find my computer. I realized that I must have left it at Mom’s. I had to do my entire blog post on her iPad. This morning when I woke up, I saw that […]
Yesterday I asked my ten-year-old granddaughter, Sidra, to paint a picture of what she thought Science Camp would be like. She did a bang-up job, rendering a representation of Cabin 4, where she’ll be staying, a tree and a sign that said ‘Science Camp’. She added two beakers, an homage to the ‘science’ in Science […]
Sidra is my granddaughter. I began interviewing her just before her baby brother, William was born. I spoke on the record with her several times since then (6 Months Later: Being a New Sibling, Sib Interview – One Year Followup, Ten Years of Age). Now that she and her family are back in California, it […]
A week ago I was just getting back from seeing my families. In my original family, my place is that of a son and a brother; in my family of choice, I am a husband, stepfather and grandfather. My granddaughter calls me Zaydie out of respect for my Jewish heritage. It was her parents’ idea. […]
What do spinning, roller coasters, New York City, the Golden Gate Bridge, stolen building stones, helicopters and trains under water, a broken lock to a construction site, an elevated train that ran out of track flew through the air landing on a person in the East River and a bitten cheek have in common? Answer: […]
Mom made me Halloween outfits. I don’t have a picture of the one where I was a bum, or maybe it was a clown. Yeah, it must have been a clown, since I had a switch in my pocket that would make my nose light up. Maybe I was a rummy. Who knows? One year […]
Shortly after 8 PM on April 17, 2013, my granddaughter became a big sister. She had been waiting for this occasion her entire life (except for the first 6 months of it). Usually, Siddy has so much energy, she has to jump up and down in order to dissipate it. But even that was not […]
Looking at this picture tightens up my chest a little bit. I think it was first time I saw Michael crying. It was in his group home. He was always acting out, yelling or hitting himself. Sometimes he would take my hand and try hitting himself with it, usually with a laugh or a smile. […]
