Michael Stanley and Bruce - But Not That Bruce

                                                          

Michael Stanley died yesterday.

Who was Michael Stanley? Only the greatest leader of The Michael Stanley Band who never made it nationally but regularly sold out 1980s Cleveland-area arenas in hours.  He was 72 but forever will feel 35 to us Clevelanders. 

After he slowed down with his band, he hosted some local TV shows and had a longtime gig on WNCX, a Cleveland classic rock station. He also played a few private concerts for benefits around town and more lucrative ones like about two years ago at the House of Blues to celebrate a friend's 60th. We all became 20-years-old that night. It was as if Mick Jagger were playing.

I hate to admit this, but my first thought of hearing of Stanley's passing today wasn't of Michael.  It was of Bruce.

Michael Stanley was my first concert and Bruce was my first date at Northeast Ohio's outdoor Blossom Music Center.  The opening act was Southside Johnny, and to say Bruce and I were very nervous is an understatement.

Now that I have a son, I can only imagine how difficult this evening was for him. Word got to my brother he had a crush, and he asked me to attend.  Bruce was a very kind, shy, smart young man. In actuality, I didn't know him that well - he attended a neighboring Catholic school.  I certainly did not know how to go on a date. No way, no how. 

I remember he picked me up with with his dark-eyes and curly hair in his parent's Lincoln - opened the door for me with an impish smile. And off we went. With my sheltered life and strict parents, I may as well have have been traveling to Antarctica.

It was a hot sticky night and Bruce had managed to snag us great seats. We were incredibly awkward. It was too loud to talk, so we sat there basically listening - not even swaying to the beat.

This has nothing to do with his quality as a date, but everything to do with our sheer terror of "what to do"on a date. We were complete and total rookies and he was a total gentlemen. I remember at one point he put his hand stiffly on my back and all my attention for the entire rest of the night turned from the music to THE HAND. He never moved it.  I never acknowledged it.  

I think we went out to a nice dinner afterwards -again, opening up my car door. There was no kiss at the end of the night. We were just so incredibly awkward and shy.  I don't think he and I "dated" again, if you could call it that.  And there was really no reason. It's as if we both knew we had to use our training wheels and each of us were the ones to do it together.

I did see him a few times after that. He would come to a couple of our high school reunions since he had so many friends at our school. He with that sparkling, dark-eyed smile that exuded gentleness and kindness. And though I hardly saw him between reunions (actually not at all), I did think of him as we all do with our first dates. He went on to become a Notre Dame fanatic, attorney and city prosecutor - probably the gentlest one who ever existed.

But about a year ago, in the early stages of COVID lockdown, I received a FB friend request from him which I immediately accepted. I visited his page and he looked so very happily married with a beautiful, loving family.  I don't know why I didn't send him a message asking how he was doing. Too shy, as usual, I guess. 

And then two weeks later high school friends began posting Bruce had died of a brain tumor. I had no idea he was ill.  I wonder why he "friended" me? Was it to reminisce about his life's own first date and pay a virtual visit one last time?

If I had known, and I had sent him a message, I would have told him that no finer, classier first date existed in the history of first dates. I hope his kids (and wife) know what a gentleman he was - though I am sure they do. I will forever regret not reaching out. 

Today, the entertainer Michael Stanley followed Bruce to the next level. I hope they are both in heaven, Bruce with his hand gently on the back of an innocent sweet girl and Michael playing his brains out.

Life is short. It's the seemingly meaningless memories that both anchor you and leave you sobbing unexpectantly, gasping for air.

Goodbye, Michael. Goodbye, Bruce. Together, you gave me an everlasting life's memory that hot sticky night in the summer of 1981.

(This essay is dedicated to Bruce C's immediate family whom I have never met. You had a good one.)

 

The Scariest Essay I Have Ever Written

I still see her.  I see them all.

But she stands out in my memory.  The word “spitfire” is overused but I saw her studying me when I climbed into the car. And my first thought: spitfire.

She was tiny – gorgeous – impeccably dressed and innately curious, early - 70s, but looked 50. She had a name that could alternatively be a man or a woman’s name.

Later, she said she wondered when she first met me if I were one of the patients or employees because I reminded her of Julie the Cruise Director from The Love Boat TV series with my upbeat attitude.

But I was one of the patients. We were at a high-end psychiatric facility being chauffered from appointment to appointment. Depression had gotten ahold of me.

 

She was a west coast blue blood. Goggle her name in those days (five years ago) and she was listed as one of the most powerful woman in this large west coast city. She had founded a huge cultural arts organization and in the two weeks we spent together 24/7 she would regularly receive emails from some impressive luminaries.  

Once, she asked if I wanted to join her for dinner with Anita Hill and Gloria Steinem but then she copped out at the last minute. To say I was a “little bummed” would have been an understatement. 

She truly wanted to die.  She kept telling me this as if she were stating she wanted to brush her teeth.  But she told me this in between silly conversations. There were nights she crawled onto my bed pajama-party style and we watched fascinating documentaries on my computer.  We learned later this co-mingling in bedrooms was not allowed, but the staff seemed to overlook it for us because they realized how therapeutic it was for both of us!  They would hear GALES of laughter coming from my room – not a bad sign from someone who regularly stated she wanted to die. 

I didn’t necessarily want to die, but my depression was spurred by something recent and situational and from a brutal past I had kept at bay until I was 50 by control-freak behavior and perfectionism. 

One night, we could not figure out how to open the clothing dryer door (she admitting she had a laundress since she was a child) and we pulled and pulled until we fell backwards on the floor.  It wasn’t until I discovered we were pulling from the wrong side of the door that we broke out into very loud laughter - not a common noise around there. Sam had such a raucous laugh!

We were at luxurious Victorian home with 10 patients on the campus of probably this country’s best-known psychiatric facility located in the Northeast.  We each had our own bedroom and bath, drivers to drive us to appointments on campus and a private chef. The 10 “patients” were each more fascinating than the next, and we would chat at dinners around the table. One man from South America had an international business that employed 20,000 people. Another was a resident of a long line of a wealthy family from Mexico City. One young adult’s family brought Wagyu beef to America. My friend “Sam” (in addition to her own illustrious groundbreaking career in the arts) had esteemed judges in her family, including a direct connection to the Supreme Court. One of the patients was a cast member on one of the most popular TV shows in the history of American television.

I tell you this not to name drop, but to emphasize MENTAL ILLNESS does not pick and choose. It should not be hidden from society as something akin to syphilis. We had the most amazing conversations around the lunch and dinner tables.  This was decidedly NOT “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

These are REAL normal people!

This essay will be a series of others to come, and I will discuss in a future essay the disgrace of our current mental health system in the US. I have been grateful and very lucky to attend a few private pay facilities (and some not) and most of what else is available is an abomination – or there is not much long term.

I have debated for years whether to talk about this. I have met the most amazing people who exist on this Earth in the last few years because I have travelled this route– they are to a person immeasurably accomplished, hearts made of the finest gold, lives met with tragedy upon tragedy.   Their stories (albeit identities disguised by me) need to be told.  And…..though I can’t share what happened to me in my early years and to protect a family member who needs to tell their own story, I am jumping right into this truth-telling mission.

Judge me. Go ahead.

But back to Sam.

We kept in touch. She had a suicide attempt after she left but survived. We would write long, very deep emails to each other and I would constantly remind her that one day she'd show me around her city an we'd share a gin and tonic.  

In her own misery, she would find the strength to offer me advice.  I still have her emails. I literally printed them out and put them in a binder. She went to another longer term facility – she still wanted to die. Her sister kept encouraging her to contact me as well, remembering the laughter we once shared. 

I had a dip in my own mood that summer. I felt that I would make her worse with continued correspondence.  I stopped sending her emails. 

My sister-in-law convinced me to take a trip with her that Fall to my bucket list item – the Cotswolds in England. I summoned everything I had and went (gratefully).  Upon arriving home that weekend, I opened the New York Times. 

Sam was dead.

Here is a person who accomplished so much her in her life and was beloved by so many people that her death warranted a huge column across the country from where she lived.  She had a husband, children and grandchildren who adored her. "It was intractable," her dear and once desperate husband wrote to me. Intractable.

She wanted to die. And that was that.

Andrew Sullivan calls depression “The Noonday Demon.”  Clinical depression is not like “I just don’t feel like going out to eat today.”

It’s like opening your eyes in the morning (if you were lucky enough to get some sleep) and saying to yourself  “I can’t believe I have to do this the fuck again.” It’s like being in the most magical beautiful place and only seeing gray.  It’s acknowledging how goddammed lucky you are but only feeling worse because your mood doesn’t match the luck.

I have more people to talk about. I love people, so I am a sponge. Their stories need to be told.  I have outed myself in doing so, so bear with me because I feel vulnerable.

To be continued……


But this one is dedicated to “Sam.”

(Future person essays will come from all different facilities and demographics.....this disease doesn't pick and choose based on power or wealth.)

She Knew

This poem was written about my mother-in-law.  She treated me and my sister-in-law to a trip to the South of France after her cancer was in remission.

She Knew

In her cool Merino wool slacks
She knew

Buy it she smiled with glee
and so the gracious mahogany breakfront

sat before us

Lonely in the corner

dusty, its rounded glass doors peering at us

like eyes through sunglasses

She knew

Buy it she said,

and the translator we hired

to guide us through Arles

negotiated with the elegant owner

of the antique store on the River Rhone

Buy it she said
and she waved her hand

at all the ways I could think

why it was an impossible purchase,

fretting over the logistics of a France to USA shipment

Buy it she said
And I did.

And we toasted the acquisition
over rose wine in fine crystal

back at the home of the translator

Who understood.

Buy it she said
And she knew

That nine months later she would be gone
leaving us to celebrate life
dinner after dinner
year after year
generation after generation
with laughter and love
along with the

lonely
dusty
once-forgotten
breakfront.

She knew.

Stories From A Vacation Rental.....

So I am renting a place in Naples from a Boston man I've never met for the next few weeks. It looks like it's decorated from when it was built, mostly original, from the 70s or 80s. 

I knew this going in. But our agent said it was exquisitely spotless and had very good golf course access because the club was small with wonderful, tight-knit members. And great location. Sold.

I love this place exactly for the schmatlzy original features. For all the kitsch. The plastic flowers; the palm leaves from Palm Sunday draped behind family photos; the cross over our bed; the poem written to the matriarch on the occasion of her 80th to the tune of "Let it Snow" but "On the Go, On the Go, On the Go." Colin Powell, David Hallberstam and Sarah Palin's books together on the book shelf; an electric piano with the songbook open to "My Favorite Things." The mauve drapes and matching mauve flowered love-seats. A Hummel ashtray. 

You can tell a lot about the family by studying their design habits on the day of move-in 40 years ago. 

But I love the kitchen best of all. It is a small galley kitchen with the old dropped ceilings and uneven, sticky walnut cabinets; I feel like I'm in a ship's kitchen cooking here. The countertop is that Formica brand countertop that was made to look like wood (we had that!). The wall covering consists of a plaid yellow background with little white and blue tea saucers floating on it. Curtains are blue and white toile which used to be all the rage of sophistication at one time. (I personally don't see the design tie to the teacups.)

But even better are the original appliances. They are all spotless and work perfectly. Including the giant microwave built into the wall with a turn dial displaying numbers as opposed to digitals that slowly ticks down after initiating a countdown. I definitely stand away from THAT thing when using it.

It's incredible that the mother had seven Irish Catholic kids when using this small condo as a vacation spot because there is absolutely no wear and tear. How do I know she had seven kids?

The photos on the wall of bookshelves. At first I didn't want to even look at them because I felt it some sort violation of privacy but then I thought, well THEY left them. But also I did not want to look at them because of the state I am in -- one of loss and sadness. I did not need another constant reminder of perfect cohesive, accomplished families as they grew through the ages.

In the photos, each subject is more handsome and beautiful than the next, and many are shown receiving their diplomas from distinguished schools. And then the grandkids arrive on the scene, and you see the one shot we all have--- the entire extended family standing on the beach in khakis and collared shirts.. Also on the wall are two pencil drawings of what I believed (and later confirmed) to be their two homes in Waltham on the Cape and Beacon Hill. Oh and then there's the cute grandchildren art Gram Jean had framed.

So all week I have ignored their teasing grins and did again today as I passed them on the way to a conference call. My plan was to try to find the pool in time for the 1pm call but ended up literally racing to one lone bench hidden behind an outbuilding. As I grew nearer, I saw this bench was engraved with names of the father and daughter of the folks who owned our condo, as in memoriam. There are dozens if not hundreds of benches within this 300-acre development. Why would I walk to that one?

After my conference call, I suddenly decided I wanted to know more about this family who heretofore I had believed had not been touched by the hand of grief. I thought they all went on to live perfect, unblemished lives.

Google was my friend when I returned home to find cancer took the patriarch at 74 in 1996 and that he was head of cardiology for a Boston hospital. Nearly 10 years later, two of his daughters would be gone too, as well as a 10-year-old-grand child due to complications from the influenza B virus, his obituary with a close up of his dark brown eyes. Before I knew this, I remembered seeing young William's photo as a toddler on a stand by the kitchen, imagining him to be a lucky young adult member of this family by now. 

Yet the "On the Go" grandmother lives. Not here anymore, which is why her family is renting it. But as I sit here at night alone in this tiny galley kitchen and screened in porch, I feel a connectedness to her. I imagine how many dark nights of worry she faced as her two daughters succumbed to serious illness. I can picture her scrubbing down the tiles to stop from crying after her breadwinning husband died. And then her daughter and little grandson. 

This place is a metaphorical life lesson for me. Though I would never wish anyone grief and loss, until I realized that this imagined perfect family from all the photos was not immune, I had a difficult time settling down here.

You see, these photos remind me to live today like it's your last, no matter the heavy burdens on your mind about yesterday and tomorrow. Grief is universal; grab what joy you can. They are all staring at me with their big beautiful smiles as I type, nudging me like good Catholic kids do.

Some of them are still in this realm; some have passed on. For some reason, I had used my own hurts to justify that their generous smiles could not coexist. It's time to join the hurting, grieving, joyful living.

No More Mrs. Nice Lady Therapy

Do you ever look back at your life and see things so differently through the eyes of a mature lens filled with life experience?

The year was 1991. Despite having a great job and good friends, I was in my sixth year of a relationship that was every kind of dysfunctional. I was 27 and in complete denial.

I was seeing this female therapist (I will call her Dr. H), who was about the age I am now. Each week, I would speak lovingly of this guy who was literally cheating on me. I would read his letters of apology aloud to her. I would recount how my days would be consumed with his every action. From my clear 52-year-old eyes in the rear view mirror, I can see now that she saw I had so much more to offer as I sat there week after week in my career-ready Casual Corner suits, taut runner's body, carefully-applied makeup and 1990s groomed hair. The outside was perfect. The inside was a mess. 

Yet there she sat in her chair across from me, gently trying to lead me to the conclusion to break free. But it wasn't happening. I was losing myself. And fast.

One day, she had a new plan. Why don't I bring this guy into therapy so perhaps she could work with both of us? I asked him to come, and he agreed, with the condescending "of course I will be there for you because you are the one who is damaged goods."

We walked into her office together, and there she sat stiffly upright like an authoritarian Judge Judy, nothing like the warm compassionate demeanor with which I was familiar. "You sit there," she said, "motioning to me. "And you," she said, nodding to my partner. "You sit over there across the room."

She wasted no time. "You two are breaking up today," she announced matter of factly. "Do you have any shared items like apartment keys, CDs or books that need to be returned? (Like a divorce proceeding, she made us each list in detail what we possessed.) "I don't want any excuses for you to 'conveniently' see each other again."

Then she made us set a time for the next morning when we would bring the items to her office to exchange. We were like shell-shocked robots. We both knew it was the right thing to do. No, scratch that. It was the only thing to do. And so we did it. And never really looked back. 

I was recounting this story to a friend the other day and I thought, "What a total sisterhood badass move." I can't imagine it was a usual tactic in therapy, a place where patients are supposed to come to their own conclusions. But she literally just could not bear witness one minute longer where I was concerned. There would be no more Mrs. Nice Lady Therapy. No more soothing talk about co-dependence and familial wounds of the past.

She transcended the role of traditional therapist, took a huge leap of faith, and became a badass sister who could not abide losing weak-willed me under the spell of a man who had nothing to offer me. And I was ready to be lost. Heck. I had an engagement ring and a house under construction that we were to occupy.

My life trajectory would have been wildly different from this safe, loved spot where I sit today. Like a whole 'nother planet different. 

So Dr. H., I don't know where you are now. But this 52-year-old former patient who is now the age you were at your best for me thanks you. 

I see now that we were partners in arms. We had more in common than I'd thought. Because I'd do the same badass thing to a young vulnerable woman today. Paying it forward. 

Thanks for saving the sisterhood. Thanks for saving me.

America, 1989: Of Pies and People

I used to hear them on their phones outside my office door.

Their names were Marge and Eileen, and they represented the customer service department of the clothing manufacturing company for which I handled marketing and public relations.

"How’s that grandchild of yours?” Marge would say, in her 40s at the time, heavyset and full of emotion with no children or husband of her own. “Did you like the brisket recipe I gave you? It was my grandmother’s Passover version.”

Eileen, divorced and living with her mother, had a sarcastic wit, “Are you ordering two dozen more today?” she’d shout into the phone. “I thought I told you last week that one dozen wasn’t going to be enough. And by the way, someday I will get to Connecticut and visit you. I have never really left Ohio.”

It was the late 1980s, and this was the second job of my career. The company was family-owned, and, in fact, the founder would still wander around outside my office door. Frederick DiCiccio founded the company in the early 1940s. Actually, he didn’t really even start the company  -- it was given to him.

A tiny man of few words in his 80s when I began, Frederick stowed away from Italy at the age of 16, hidden in the ship’s cargo deck. He landed in America with no knowledge of the language and somehow found a job sewing coats in a factory in Cleveland Ohio owned by an elderly female. Frederick soon became her best and hardest worker, and when she retired, she offered him the business in lieu of all the back pay she owed him from his never having missed one day of work or taken a vacation.

The war came, and with it, rations and specific government assistance to pregnant mothers and manufacturers of related items – including nursing and maternity bras. Frederick borrowed train ticket collector punches and used them and college students to make holes in the then-corseted bras. Soon, he had a completely different business model.

Frederick tells of the day he took a bus to New York to show his samples to a Macy’s lingerie buyer-- a story I actually videotaped once. “I sat in the lobby all day, and she walked past me," Frederick says to the camera. "I never said a word, and spent the night on the couch. The next day, she told me to come into her office, (he motions in the video with his hand) and I gave her six samples," he says with the gleam still in his eye.

He reenacts her movements and says, “She studied each one just like this.  And then she put three in her lap. Those three were the first ever products I sold to a big department store!” and his eyes widen on the video as if this were still fresh news.

By the time I arrived, this company was the largest niche manufacturer of these items and many more SKUs to the maternity and breastfeeding markets. Our customer base was thousands of small maternity stores, maternity store chains,  and also mid-sized and other major department stores across the United States.  We sold through an independent sales rep team of old timers with names like Seymour and Al, who spent their careers in the garment district of New York and other areas of the country, peddling woman’s lingerie. I loved these old-timers. They knew all the buyers by name for generations. They could draw flow charts from memory of all of them. They had large personalities and even larger stories to go with them. Of course they did, for their people skills was their currency.  

And we made the items in America, in mostly two brand new manufacturing facilities in rural South Central Illinois.

One of my first duties was to organize the first company-wide sales meeting near these manufacturing facilities. And I remember swooping in over the cornfields in a tiny plane, renting a car and checking into the Thelma Keller Convention Center in Effingham, Illinois (which was really just a Ramada Inn with a fancy name.)

Thelma, too, had a story, and it began with a one-pump gas station she and her husband Lolami owned and from which she served the best barbecue sandwiches in the region. From there, came a gas distribution business and this convention center, inspired by Thelma’s passion for cooking and treating each guest as special as the next. 

At that time, there were dozens if not hundreds of manufacturing facilities in the area. And the convention center, though not fancy but just right, served many of them with lodging and sales meetings. The grand dame was probably in her 80s at that time, and she was actually at the front desk when I checked in late in the evening a few days in advance of our meeting. She was a whisp of a thing who never stopped moving, with a big smile and auburn hair piled on top of her head in a beehive. And when I came down for breakfast early the next morning, there she was again at the hostess stand.

But Thelma wasn’t the only kind and gracious hard worker around. The area was teeming with them, which I soon found out when I visited our factories. From the plant managers, to assistants to the maintenance man sweeping a broom, I was greeted with hugs and offers of pie the very first time I visited those facilities and during the times I would visit them in the years to come. 

These people were not just paycheck-collecting robots. They were real people in real rural America, and since I was raised in the suburbs of larger US cities, this was a completely new experience for me. I loved visiting those plants. There’d always be homemade food in the lunchroom someone had brought in to share.  There were stories of babies, and parades, and rotary meetings. There were dinners at people’s homes I’d be invited to as guest, sitting around their family dinner table. There were town diners with some of the best food I’d ever eaten then or since.

These facilities didn’t just produce garments, they housed mini-communities of their own, filled with fellowship and humanity.

The sales meeting came and went -- my first project a resounding success -- but more importantly, a perfect way to immerse myself into what would be the next six years of my life. And as I look back at the six years I spent with that company, I consider it a microcosm of American manufacturing then versus now.

Because a year or two after I started, Wal-Mart, Target and the big mass merchandising chains came calling as they in many ways were just in their infancies on the big retail stage of America. And how could we say no?  Someone else was going to get the business, and we had people to employ.

I remember all 26 years of me telling the owner that I believed we’d see a drastic shift in our customers. And it happened. By the time I left, our top few accounts made up 80 percent of our business, Wal-Mart was calling us collect, and recommending overseas manufacturers to keep prices down.

And Marge and Eileen had fewer and fewer people to talk to outside my office door. For Wal-Mart and Target placed orders using technology and not people.

I think back to that time often, for I believe I witnessed both the glory days and the beginning of the downfall of American manufacturing in those six short years.  I remember the people. I remember their hearts. I remember Seymour Klein with his distinct New York accent, disheveled oversized suit, worn suitcase full of bra samples he’d schlep around New York whenever I came to visit during market week. I remember his kind eyes, easy laugh, shock of grey hair and his attempt to ease his young daughter into his business near the end, not realizing that the end was something much bigger than his own retirement. 

I remember the silencing of the phones outside my office, as mom and pop retailers closed up shop, no match for Wal-Mart and Target (who sold our wares as private label, leaving me less to promote and weakening the brand name our proud founder once scratched out on a note pad.)

Frederick died, too, during the time I was employed there. He was a humble man, whose life was his work, evidenced by the funeral guests consisting exclusively of family and employees including factory workers. Yes, many travelled to Cleveland to attend this man’s funeral – a man they never met. But they respected him because his grit and determination as a 16-year-old off the boat from Italy with no knowledge of the English language is exactly why they could feed their families.

Will we ever have a period like this in America again? When people talked to each other while doing business instead of hitting “send” from their computer screens? When whole communities were employed at a few manufacturing facilities owned by actual Americans, and not some Brazilian conglomerate?  Where not only could you trace back that product you were assembling to a person, but you had the humanity and grace to travel 600 miles to attend his funeral?

I don’t think we will. But I feel honored and humbled that I was there. Because it formed me, too. I was a few years out of college, and a year into my employment when I broke up with my controlling fiancé. And for the first time in my life, I supported myself exclusively and found an apartment of my own.

The apartment where an office mate would help me sew curtains and sponge paint my living room walls a deep shade of coral. When another quiet colleague who on the day of my move-in placed a bottle of wine on my desk, giving me hope for new beginnings. When the founder’s son took me aside and gave me a raise that day too, just because he knew that moving into my own place came with a greater financial burden.

How lucky I was to land in the lap of that family- owned business at that point in history! Where humanity, resilience and community modeled for me all that was right in this world. If even for just a few short years.


*** Names have been changed to protect privacy.  But the Thelma Keller Conference Center remains.  For more about Thelma:

http://www.kellerconventioncenter.com/about-us)

The Reele Family Christmas Letter

Dear Friends:

First of all, let me just apologize off the bat for calling this a “Christmas” letter.  If you are offended by my labeling this letter based on how we celebrate this season, feel free to scan this and shame us all on social media.

Whew!  Where do I begin!  What has been happening in the Reele Household since we last communicated via texts and emails and the occasional tag?

Well, some of you may have seen my Facebook postings making vague mention (I believe that’s called vaguebooking) of the trials and tribulations of raising teenagers.  You may be happy to know that we have turned that corner a bit, and Johnny Jr. managed to secure a job long enough to earn money to replace the two tires he blew out in the week after getting his license.  It took a bit of cajoling easing him out of bed on weekends to pack groceries, but he did it!  Go Johnny!!  And it looks like the “circumstances” which caused the tire damage will only be a temporary mark on his criminal record.  

We are so proud of the resiliency Johnny has developed during this experience.  We know that not only will this help him in life, but we are certain he will put this life skill to use competing on the varsity squad in our quest to have him gain a scholarship playing on an ivy league Ultimate Frisbee team someday.

Hannah is really working on trying not to roll her eyes every waking minute of the day. Oh, she tries so hard!  We have a little family “sign” when she begins to look upwards, and so far I think it’s working!  When she’s not pseudo-shopping online at places we can’t afford, Hannah likes to spend her time monitoring social media on the lookout for all the events and get-togethers that did not include her.  

I am so blessed to be here so she can avail herself to me, so I may absorb all her teenage angst and lay awake at night contemplating how this will affect her uncertain future.  Hey!  Ain’t nobody binge watches “The Good Wife” in the wee hours of the morning like the mother of a 14-year-old girl who enjoys using her mother as a trash container for all her emotional mishegas!  (Please don’t be offended by my usage of a Yiddish word during the week before Christmas.)

Guess what?  John Sr. has been replaced by a robot at work!  It seems that all his fine skills he learned at Purdue’s School of Engineering and then honed on the job these past 25 years can now be done by a robot!  Fascinating , huh?  His company was purchased by a conglomerate in Bhutan that had its origins in the distribution of self-help Buddhism-based materials to the Western World.  In any event, the new owner (a former monk) offered John a lesser position that would entail him watching the robots that are now doing his job, but John felt that his area of expertise, “Eddy Current Signal Response Using  COMSOL Multiphysics,” would not be best put to use sipping Artisan coffee and watching robots.  Onward!  

So far, he’s put out some feelers and the only thing that’s turned up is a greeter at the local Apple Superstore.  They offered him an additional role as Manager of Year-Old Recycled iPhone Collections, but he’s persevering. We look forward to all the support you will tweet and text us in the coming year.  We are nothing without the social media support of all our friends.

Finally, there’s me.  In this world full of sin, evil and micro-aggression, I try to look through my own personal lens of FWP.  What is FWP, you ask?  Well, I put my bellyaching to the First World Problem test (well aware that my husband’s company was acquired by a developing country conglomerate.)  We have clear running water to wash the endless mountains of laundry and scrub the filthy toilets.  We have a roof over our heads to contain all the mindless clutter formed by years of going to Target for “just paper towels.”  We are blessed to live in the United States, home of, well, just home.

Is there a robot to replace me?

Yours in solidarity,

Ima Reele