So it goes...

Thanksgiving has always been a little bit of the prologue holiday for me. The warm-up act before the headliner Christmas. The holiday with a dash of a letdown. I remember as a kid, appreciating the fact that we were all together as a family, but when all was said and done, what was the point of a big, delicious meal, if there was no gift exchange afterward. Of course, my thinking was antithetical to what Thanksgiving was all about, namely being thankful for everything. Your family, your house, your school, your government and even the food before you. As a kid, those holidays were always big affairs. Of course everything seems bigger when you're young. A couple of times we held it at my grandmother's community room at the Lexington Apartments on Jefferson Avenue. She had some of the affair catered and for some reason, my wife remembers the chef in charge of cutting the turkey had a missing finger, victim of his own knife skills perhaps. My cousins from White Bear Lake came ...

So a while back, I sent a copy of The Portland House: a '70's memoir to THE Portland House. It was a suggestion by my sister, Jane. She thought it would be a cool idea to surprise the owners and let them know that their house was famous in a sub-atomic micro fame sort of way. I sent them the book with a short note basically telling them that it was the house I grew up in  and I thought they might enjoy reading some of its history. I also told them that if they felt compelled, they could leave it for the next owners or even share it around the neighborhood. I sort of hoped for a response, just to see what they thought. Well, today a card came from The Portland House family. The card was written by the wife of the current owner - the same owner who bought it from us over 32 years ago. She said that they did a big renovation five years ago, including a new garage from what I can see. They also removed the open porch and put on an enclosed one. She said they had 3 boys and...

As part of my book promotion, I run a giveaway contest that encourages people to send me photos of themselves with my book,  The Portland House . I had a lot of fun with the same contest for Dirty Shirt , so thought I would do it again with this book. The prize for a couple of randomly drawn winners is a signed copy of the book. Social media has made people much more willing to share photos of themselves, so doing it with the prospect of maybe winning something garnered some creative photos. A House on the Beach Quite possibly the most creative one was by Jody Morris, who owns a goat farm in Upstate New York. She showed that goats are more intelligent than we give credit for. Here's one of her goat pictures. Then, there were a fair number of people posting pictures from warm places. Florida, California and Mexico were a few of the favorites. As hard as it was to know that they were somewhere I wanted to be, it was still great to see that they were reading my book on...

In continuing to give a quick expose' on some of the characters in The Portland House: a 70's memoir, today I will talk about a character who plays a much bigger role in the book, namely my mom. Obviously, Mom is a central character in the book , after all she is the one who got us to the house and the one running it. But that doesn't mean she is always present in every story. Many of the stories involve interactions with siblings that ultimately ended up at mom. Mom turns 40. April, '73. Mom worked full time during our years on Portland Avenue and as a result, she had to rule remotely. Sometimes this was done over the phone, She says she used to hate it when my sister Jane and my brother Rob would call her from separate extensions in the middle of a fight they were having. To add to this scenario, Rob was hearing impaired so had trouble hearing mom's responses on the phone. She shouted, "You two figure it out and I will deal with you when I get home!...