rlfj: Blog

Lots of fun in Chapter 9 as Hersch and Judy keep fooling around. I remember finding books like the ones I describe in my own parents’ nightstands. Good Heavens! My parents had sex more than three times! Unbelievable!

Anybody else have a ‘77 Maverick? Worst POS car I ever owned!

Just like the Caparellis, my family went trick-or-treating in the snow, both in Ballston Spa and in Otsego County, NY. The only time anybody would see their costumes was when we took them to the volunteer fire house for the Halloween Party and Costume Awards. My youngest once went as a pregnant nun, but that was when she was a teenager, and we weren’t around to be embarrassed by her antics.

While I’m not completely sure of the costs of RPI in 1980, when I graduated in 1977 the tuition had just topped $4,000. That did not include room or board in the dorms, which could be another $1,200 or more. By 1980 tuition was probably $5k to $6k. Those figures seem ludicrously low now, but at the time it was a real scandal. Nowadays, it’s a lot more. The official tuition for 2025-2026 is $64,400 plus another $23,344 for room and board, fees, and everything else.

While doing the final editing of this chapter I discovered a timeline problem in the books. If you bought a copy, make sure to download the corrected versions when I finish the story. I will post a note.

Finally, while my books have been on Bookapy for years, I only learned that Bookapy had an email system earlier this week. When I went into it, I found about half-a-dozen emails, some going back a few years. Sorry about that! I responded to them, but don’t think badly of me, please. I just didn’t know.

Enjoy!

One interesting response to Chapter 7. Apparently, Tommy Caparelli pushing his son against a wall counts as assault and child abuse. Maybe nowadays it is, but not in 1979. Don’t go judging historical periods by modern standards. I’d hate to admit the shit my father did to me back in the 1960s and 1970s. Somehow, I survived.

On the other hand, several readers with personal knowledge of adoption or unwed motherhood commented I got it right. Thanks. It seems there are a lot of family trees with some odd branches grafted on. For those who say Tommy and Mary should have told Hersch when he was a child, I reply that’s not realistic. Certainly, in the 1960s the whole situation would have been one of deep shame and social disapproval. What would be the odds that a young child would blab about it to friends, and that his friends would tell their parents? I guarantee there would have been repercussions from telling Hersch too soon as well as too late.

A typo was found in Chapter 3. Fixed. Thanks.

Enjoy!

Not much to comment on in this chapter. We learn that the sins of the father, or in this case the mother, can come back to haunt you. I was curious about the origin of the saying, so I googled it. Exodus 20:5 – “Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;” Three and four generations? This is going to be a real problem for more than a few of us! My maternal grandfather was a real character, as was one of my paternal great-grandfathers. I have a sneaking suspicion I am not going to Heaven.

Enjoy!

For those not familiar with New England and New York weather, Chapter 6 refers to nor’easters, a frequent winter storm in the area. A nor’easter is a cyclonic storm that forms off the coast of New England during the winter. While satellite photos make it look like a hurricane, it is different. It forms when warm Gulf Stream water hits cold Canadian air. While most winds in North America blow west to east, cyclonic storms swirl in a counterclockwise fashion, so the wind that hits the mainland is coming from the north-east – a nor’easter. These storms can pummel New England and reach as far inland as the Hudson Valley and the Adirondacks. Two or three nor’easters a year are not uncommon, and they can dump several feet of snow per storm.

Yogi and Boo-Boo refer to The Yogi Bear Show, a very popular Hanna-Barbera cartoon series from the Sixties. If you were around in the Sixties and early Seventies, you know who Yogi and Boo-Boo were. Our kids might have known; our grandkids haven’t got a clue! They were cartoon bears who inhabited Jellystone Park, where they avoided Ranger Smith and tried to grab ‘pic-a-nic baskets’ from campers; Yogi was “smarter than the av-er-age bear!" Even today, my wife and I joke that Yogi and Boo-Boo will come up on our deck and knock first.

Typo in Chapter 5. It was Jake who died in Vietnam, not Jack. Fixed. Thank you to the eagle-eyed reader who spotted it.

Enjoy!

We now move into Book 2, a generation after Book 1. The Caparellis and Tomasinos are still around, but we are now meeting a new family, the Roswells.

This is why I had to rename Father Frank from Roswell to Rossman. When I wrote the story, I forgot that I had already named Father Frank as Francis Roswell. Then I wrote about a girl and her family, the Roswells. I didn’t catch it until too late, at which time I changed Father Frank to Francis Rossman. Again, when I finish the story, I will update the published versions, and you will be able to download the corrected version.

The places I mention in Chapter 5 - Ballston Spa, West Milton, and Rock City Falls – are all very real places. In the 1960s they were small, quiet, and rural. When my wife and I moved to upstate New York, we went from a suburban apartment to a place where building lots were measured in acres. In many townships and counties (but not in villages or cities) the minimum building lot is five acres. We still have family in the suburbs, and they just can’t imagine life where the driveway is over five-hundred feet long, the annual snowfall is over eight feet, and the deer and the antelope play. (Okay, no antelope, but plenty of deer, coyote, rabbit, fox, racoon, bobcat, bear, porcupine, turkey, quail, and every other critter in upstate NY, all on my seven acres.)

FYI – I edited a Soft-R version of the story and have it on Bookapy now. Also, FYI, if you plan to buy my stories, buy them on Bookapy. They pay the authors better royalties.

Enjoy!