Thursday, October 27, 2011

LORAIN'S COUNTY FAMILY LOSES LOVED ONE WHILE LOCAL HOSPICE MAKES THAT TRAGEDY EVEN WORSE--IF SUCH A THING IS POSSIBLE!

     I hate to be vulgar, especially in print, but I assure you that a front-page story in The Morning Journal (Wednesday, October 26th edition) has made me so angry that I want to spit!  As a probate attorney, and also as a person whose only sibling (my brother) passed away in a hospice in 2008, and whose husband passed away in another hospice in 2010, the story immediately interested me.  But imagine my shock at discovering that the family involved in this story are people that I know--in fact, I had just called to offer my condolences a few minutes before reading the article.
     I will not unnecessarily relate all the details in this post, since they are readily available online--complete with video--to any of you who wish to read the article.  In brief, let me tell you that a 60-year-old man named Vernon Kapucinski was dying in a Lorain County hospice.  His family had been visiting with him regularly but, a day or two before he passed away, one of the nurses started giving the brother and the children of the patient a hard time, telling them that they had to know a "secret code", in order to be allowed to visit Mr. Kapucinski.  The bottom line of the story is that the patient died ALONE!  When his daughter confronted one of the nurses on the telephone, demanding to know how such a thing had happened, and why her father had to die alone, while family members were attempting to be admitted to his room, the nurse told the daughter "He didn't die alone.  I was with him."  Such arrogance is beyond unbelievable!  Forgive me for not having words elegant enough to better describe this horrible situation but, as I said above, I am so angry at the moment that I could....YOU CAN COMPLETE THIS SENTENCE WITH ANY WORD OR WORDS THAT YOU FEEL ARE APPROPRIATE.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

FOLLOW-UP TO SEPTEMBER 28TH POST: "PROLOGUE: CLEVELAND, 1940

     I must admit that I am not very computer-techy.  Therefore, I didn't realize until today that two of you had commented on my September 28th post--which is the Prologue to my novel that was published a number of years ago.  Thanks for those comments.  They were great, and I just posted them to the blog.  One person said that they felt that what newspapers have long needed is a section where literary works are published on a regular basis.  It may interest you to know, if you don't know already, that there was a time in literary history--in the 1800's--when writers published their books, one chapter at a time, in the newspapers of the day.  In fact, such well-known authors as Charles Dickens and Louisa May Alcott did exactly that.  I agree that this is an idea that should be considered again.  In fact, I have been thinking about doing that for a few months now.  Then, of course, there is the other alternative.  The novel for which I posted the Prologue has been out-of-print for a number of years, but can still be found on Amazon.  It is entitled "Millionaire's Row."  Other comments, anyone?  I just love to get feed-back from all of you through the comments that you leave.  Sorry that it took me so long to post them.  Dummy me!

Saturday, October 8, 2011

BOB HOPE'S FIRST JOB!

     I'm sure that all of you know that the late, great comedian, Bob Hope was from Cleveland.  But here's something that I'll bet you don't know:  I grew up being told that Orlando's Bakery started with Mrs. Orlando, who lived across the street from my grandfather's house on Woodland Avenue in Cleveland, baked the best Italian bread around.  It was so good that the people in the neighborhood started asking her to sell them a loaf.  Pretty soon, Mrs. Orlando was baking dozens of loaves every week and selling them to the neighbors.  Rather than delivering them herself, she hired two little guys from around the corner to deliver the bread out of their little red wagon--made from wood in those days.  The two little guys that she hired?  My uncle and his little buddy, Robert Leslie Hope--later to be known as Bob Hope!  Orlando's Bakery and Bob Hope--just two of Cleveland's many success stories.

Friday, October 7, 2011

ANOTHER STORY OF PEOPLE FINDING EACH OTHER

     Back in August, I had several positive comments on a true story I told you about two long-lost brothers who, against all odds, found each other.  So I decided to tell you another true story.  This story took place over twenty years ago when I was contacted by a woman who told me that she was, at that time, 69 years old, and that she had been searching for her biological mother for 50 years--since she was just nineteen.  She told me that she had been given up for adoption as an infant, but had never been adopted.  Instead she had grown up in an orphanage until the age of eighteen.
     She asked me if I could possibly assist her in finding her birth mother.  I said that I would try, and collected the information that she had been able to gather over the previous fifty years.  Back then, there were not the amazing number of computer aids that are available today.  Nonetheless, after quite a bit of research, I finally located her birth mother--a woman in her eighties who had given birth to her daughter when she was only  fourteen years of age.
     I contacted the mother and told her that the child she had given up sixty-nine years earlier had been searching for her for the past fifty years!  The mother declared that she considered this a miracle, and that she, herself, had never married, had no other children, and had been wishing, all through the years, to be reunited with her child.  So of course I called her daughter, who lived in Cleveland, and told her that I had found her mother--living in Detroit--and that her mother would be delighted to be reunited with her.  The daughter said, "I'll be in the car and on the road with the next few minutes!"
      Later that day, a Sunday in May, the daughter called me from Detroit to tell me that she was with her mother, and that they were both overjoyed by their reunion.  I wished them the best and hung up the phone.  After hanging up, I suddenly realized that, not only was it a lovely Sunday in May but, by coincidence, or who knows why, it was also Mother's Day!  I still smile to myself whenever I recall that day, and thought that reading about it might make some of you smile, too.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

DOES ANYONE AGREE THAT TELEVISED TRIALS, SUCH AS THE DOCTOR CONRAD MURRAY TRIAL, ARE BASICALLY A WASTE OF THE VIEWERS' TIME?

      Every day for the past couple of weeks, we have been inundated with the details of Doctor Conrad Murray's trial in connection with the death of Michael Jackson.  While it is certainly sad that a man of Michael's musical talents passed away, and that his doctor may or may not have been partly at fault, it seems that this continued coverage of every detail of the trial is just a gigantic publicity stunt on the part of the channel that is continuously running the trial live.  It is no different than the Casey Anthony trial.  While it was very sad that Casey's daughter died, do we really have to have the details of the trial rehashed over and over.  Am I just bored because I have seen so many trials over the years as an attorney?  I'm not sure.  I can tell you that several of them were far more interesting than the two trials mentioned above.  But there was little or no news coverage, given that the parties involved were not famous, nor did the attorneys hire press agents to up the publicity.  I guess this phenomenon pretty much began in 1994 with the O.J. Simpson trial.  And here we are, 17 years later, with the Kardashians having their own show, including spin-offs of that show--all because their late father was one of O.J.'s best friends and a part of his legal team!  It used to be that fame required one to have a talent or special gift of some kind.  It seems to me that fame now requires that a person--preferably one with problems of some type--be in the right place at the right time.  Perhaps this trend will require dictionary editors to come up with a new definition of the word "fame." What ever happened to shows with plots?  Or those which discussed serious and important topics that have an impact on all of us--not just on one person?  In fact, the whole "reality show" craze is unfathomable.  Each of us has reality issues of our own to deal with, and we don't need our own show to help us do that!   Does anyone out there agree with my take on all of this?