Author Archive
Father daughter talks
When I was at the University of Missouri for an ill-fated attempt at finishing college, I bought a Honda 50 motorcycle. It was key-started, cute, red, reliable, and could go u... read more...
How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood
When I lived in New York City, I was so eager to get letters from home that I tore open the envelopes at my mailbox. I lived on the sixth-floor of a walk-up, and as I read pag... read more...
Ivanhoe
Other children, I am told, are brought up listening to stories about Cats in Hats or animals named Piglet and Phooh. Not so Samuel Reuben’s children. Neither at home nor in hi... read more...
My Father’s Koochen – In the oven … at last!
I rushed downstairs. On the kitchen counter, I saw: • A cutting-board • A rolling pin • Melted butter • Flour. In a glass bowl near the sink, I saw: • Dry cottage... read more...
My Father’s Koochen – Setting the Stage
Two or three times a year, at no particular day, month or season, my father would get an irresistible urge to bake koochen. This need was akin to salmon swimming upstream or g... read more...
He who has a thousand friends
The ways in which my father would spontaneously arrange words into oddly juxtapositioned concepts and sentences was a talent of which I stand in awe, and will always be immode... read more...
There’s No Place Like Home
For Samuel Reuben, words were like pebbles in a colorful and carefully assembled rock collection, with an occasional semi-precious stone or diamond tossed in. April 29, 19... read more...
Letter from The War Department
My father, Samuel Reuben, was part of the War Effort during World War II. His Blinker Training Machine helped to save lives and keep our nation free. I have a war time le... read more...
The parrot and the tiger
There was a narrow closet in my parents’ bedroom in the big house in Glencoe; in that closet were stacks of crisply laundered shirts fresh from the dry cleaner. Each shirt was... read more...
The Spaghetti Machine
My father’s infatuation with spools, levers, cranks and switches continued to grow with the size of his family. One unforgettable anniversary, he bought my mother a spaghetti-... read more...
The Most Wonderful Father in the World
At one time, my father invested heavily in weaving looms, which he sold at a profit. And dry goods, which he did not. That he had acquired the dry goods from a tenant in lieu... read more...
Convex mirrors and Yerbamata tea
My father’s inventions were not restricted to spools, batteries, metal clasps, and burglar alarms. Oh, no. I can still remember the stash of convex mirrors under the sturdy... read more...
Mystic, Merry Toyland
My father and I are the only members of our family unencumbered by university diplomas. Uncle Jack and Uncle Meyer are both attorneys, as was their sister Rose. But Samuel R... read more...
Magical binoculars
The first picture I ever saw of a naked woman wasn’t in National Geographic Magazine; it was on a calendar tacked to the wall of a machine shop I visited with my father when h... read more...
Apple blossoms and chickadees
Every letter that my father wrote … every unspoken remark before and after every raised eyebrow … every comment that something was “highly iconoclastic” … every mild mannered ... read more...
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