Eldorado My father was a furrier, mostly unemployed during the long years of the depression, when I was a boy. In 1939 my parents abandoned me briefly to my Aunt Rose in Goshen, NY, and my sister to my Aunt Miriam in Brooklyn, to make a fool's trip to Florida in search of Eldorado or merely a livelihood. This was taken in Miami Beach, dated February 1, 1939. They had little resources financially or emotionally, and returned empty-handed. Young marrieds My sister Blossom and brother-in-law Freddie moved from NYC to the potato fields of Long Island where the new suburbs were being built after World War II. It was a long commute but it worked. They had three children, my niece Judy and my nephews Richie and Gary. The marriage eventually failed.

Surprise My wife Gloria and I at our 25th anniversary surprise party, May, 1982. My sister Blossom and brother-in-law Jack drove us from the house that Sunday morning to a celebratory brunch at Windows-on-the-World atop the World Trade Center. Jack and Bloss were active players in the scheme. When we returned we were greeted by scores of relatives and friends, some of whom we had not seen in years. My daughter Rebecca, then in college, had managed a masterpiece of deception. My mother My mother outlived my father and all her sisters. "Why am I living so long," she complained. She was well into her nineties with all her wits about her and most of her health, but she had no capacity, at least in these years, for happiness. One day coming out of the bathroom she said she was tired and lay down on the floor and died.