Michael N. Kalantar’s book, Russia Under Three Tsars, has been a project for me ever since I discovered the typed manuscript in the wall of books on Russian history at my mother’s house four years ago. Sadly, this was after her death, so I couldn’t ask her about a literary…
Today is Father’s Day, a day we never celebrated in our family because my parents both thought it was a commercial construct and not a legitimate holiday. I have to thank them yet again for raising me without creating these unnecessary situations that so many people find filled with angst,…
I’ve discovered another reason why I like to watch television shows about hoarders. It’s not what you think, not schadenfreude. To my surprise, it’s not what I thought either. The fascinating insight I’ve just gained is how close my own feelings are to those of hoarders. I have reached the…
Some immigrants to America expect American culture to bend and change for them. Others embrace American culture, even if there are elements in it they may not like. If they do not, they tend to remain secreted away in ethnic enclaves where they don’t have to speak or write English…
My mother’s dressing table, a lovely piece of mahogany with very feminine crystal lamps, a glass top, and a large wall mirror, was always crowded with family artifacts. Not only were there the silver-backed brush, comb, and hand mirror that had been her mother’s, but there were a silver pin…
My grandfather, John A. Brown, was a remarkable man. He spent his early years on the family farm in Tannersville, New York, then went to Chicago to study law. He supported himself through law school and his masters, an unusual degree in the 1890s, by working for newspapers as a…
My mother, Margaret Vartanoff, was an Episcopalian convert. She always greeted us happily on Easter Sunday with “He is risen!” In the week prior to that joyous day, my mother walked the walk of Jesus through all the miseries of the crucifixion. By Saturday, when he was “dead,” she was…
I have always been an extremely dutiful observer of the written social niceties. I write Christmas and holiday cards. I write bread-and-butter notes. I wrote my great-uncle in the nursing home, and my aunt in another nursing home, and my cousin in her retirement home, too. I keep in contact…
Some of you who have known me for many years wonder where my interest in personal finance (expressed in my Lose Your Money Blues blog) comes from. I sometimes wonder myself. I like to be tacky and mention dollar figures out loud, and I see your shudders when I do.…
Several times recently people have asked me questions that have brought back a key moment with my father. When I received my subscription copy of Hawkman #18, I discovered that in addition to the usual lettercolumn page that I always was eager to read, an entire page was devoted to…
