Hackensack, NJ Local News

CHATHAM, NJ - The setting is a two-bedroom apartment in Yonkers, NY. The time is 1942. We learn that two young boys, Jay and Artie, are about to move in with their cold,domineering grandmother.

There’s a lot going on in this taut, smartly written play by Neil Simon. Braden Mellina as Jay, the older brother, and Arty (Logan Guvenel) are doing their best to accept this fearful fate. Janet ...

My house was recently designated as being “teen free”.

This is because my youngest two children just turned 20. They are twins. They are both in college, away from home. I only physically see them when they come home on breaks.

Turning 20 means they have run out of youthful brand names. After spending a lifetime transitioning from infants to toddlers to kids to tweens to teens ...

To have a friend and be a friend is what makes life worthwhile. ~Unknown

February is the month of the heart, the time when we celebrate love. We buy chocolate, flowers, jewelry, and greeting cards to profess our undying love to that special someone. But, in all the hoopla of the season, perhaps we forget to honor the affection provided by the people that sustain us and enable us to thrive ...

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I was watching television recently when it happened … I saw the first commercial for the Valentine’s Day diamond collection – you know, the gift that every woman will treasure. As I listened to the music and watched as the camera panned the romantic setting, waves of emotion overcame me like a tsunami. At that moment, in my mind, everyone in the world was in a loving, ...

Chaos: Charles Manson the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties. John 

O’Neill and Dan Piepenbring  (New York: Little Brown, 2019).

It took me three weeks to read Chaos:Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties. Although fascinating, with its detailed analysis of the true motives for the Manson crimes in Los Angeles, 1969, the prose was dense and a ...

Retro Review:

Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk (Doubleday, 1955)

A coming of age story, set in 1933, Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk is a novel that still speaks to us. Written in 1955, Wouk’s strengths are in his character development, themes, and elegant prose. What is especially unusual about Marjorie Morningstar is that the author portrays the fanciful young protagonist, ...