Life at 12 College Road
by Eric Mondschein
Date of Publication: November 15th 2013
Publisher: Something or Other Publishing, LLC
Genre: Memoir
BLURB
It's not always the earth-shattering events that are most significant in our hectic lives. More often, it's the small things, many long forgotten, that touch and shape us most deeply.
Our memories of these events might bring smiles, or anger, or even a desire to forget. But every one of them helps to make us who we are today-and in some ways, who we will become tomorrow.
Join Eric Mondschein at the unhurried pace of a cup of coffee for a surprising and powerful journey in which laughter inevitably mingles with tears, sorrow turns to joy, and loss almost becomes bearable.
Excerpt
Chapter 3 SATURDAY MORNINGS On Saturday mornings, my brother and I would get up very early—unreasonably early, you might say. We would then steal downstairs, ever so stealthily, so as not to wake up Mom or Dad. Mostly it was Dad we did not want to rouse.
Chapter 3 SATURDAY MORNINGS On Saturday mornings, my brother and I would get up very early—unreasonably early, you might say. We would then steal downstairs, ever so stealthily, so as not to wake up Mom or Dad. Mostly it was Dad we did not want to rouse.
Once downstairs, we’d head to the den and the only thing on was The Modern Farmer. As I think about it today, I guess it was not so modern after all. Times have changed—but I digress.
Like clockwork, we would take our places. Jeff would nestle on the couch and cover himself with the blanket he’d carried downstairs. I would head for the big, overstuffed brown chair (which was really more than a chair, but that’s another story), sliding under the autumn-colored quilt that Mom would always place there.
As we settled in, we turned our attention to the man on the screen. In his white shirt and dark skinny tie, he’d break down, for the nation’s early risers, the latest cutting-edge techniques for planting saplings or eradicating insects. Of course, we had no clue what he was talking about. But we certainly acted like we did.
But all of this was just prelude, because the main show started at six: The Mighty Mouse Playhouse. We loved that mouse and how he would, as the cartoon so accurately claimed, “come to save the day!” We would lose ourselves in his pretend world, where the bad guys were always vanquished and help always came just in the nick of time. A world, I think, that even grown-ups sometimes wish was real.
We would watch our caped rodent hero with the sound turned down so low we could barely hear it, always with an ear out, listening for those footstepsever got to see a Mighty Mouse episode all the way through, for sure enough, we would eventually hear the dreaded stirrings above.
Frozen into place, we waited as the sound of each step brought our adversary closer to the den.
Clop, clop. On the stairs now.
Clop. Clop. Clop. Louder and closer.
And then . . . the footsteps would stop. Without looking, we knew Dad was now standing in the doorway. He was not a big man, being of average height and weight. But even with the glasses he wore, we saw him as quite formidable. Especially when that forceful voice of his, tinged with impatience, was directed at us. We knew exactly what he was going to say, too: “What are you boys watching? Turn that junk off now!”
We’d always answer with the same plea: “Daaaad, it’s not junk! It’s Mighty Mouse, and he’s come to save the day!”
Dad would look at us as if we were completely nuts. He’d shake his head, mumble that it was going to rot our brains, and tell us to get dressed. Appar- ently, there were things to do.
Perhaps if he had awakened earlier and caught us watching The Modern Farmer, things would have been different. Dad never did grasp the cosmic import ofMighty Mouse . . . or cartoons for that matter.
Author Info
Dr. Eric S. Mondschein has taught law and education and published and edited numerous articles and books in the field. He has worked for the US government in various capacities and directed an award-winning education program for New York. He was awarded the American Bar Association's Award of Excellence in Law Related Education. He served as an advisor for an international NGO in Haifa, Israel, in external affairs, security, government relations, and human rights. He also served as the citizen representative of The Post Star editorial board in 2009 and 2018.
He is the author of Life at 12 College Road published by Something or Other Publishing, which is a collection of short stories about growing up in America in the 1950s and 60s. He is also the co-author with Ellery M. ‘Rick’ Miller Jr. of Sexual Harassment and Bullying; Similar, But Not The Same, and an accompanying Teaching Supplement published by the Education Law Association in 2015.
He currently resides in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York with his wife, Ginny. They have two grown children Adam and Emily, a son in law, Kamal, a daughter in law, Yaani, and grandchildren, Annie, Nathanael, and Eli.
Hosted by
Presented by
No comments:
Post a Comment