Different Kinds of Lies

We all know that there are an assortment of different kinds of lies. Some are minor white lies which are spoken to save someone's feelings from unnecessary discomfort. There are other lies which are manufactured to create a different scene from the actual truth for the purpose of a business which may not actually be harmful. And there are other lies which are omissions of fact that are meant to hurt and destroy.

An example of a lie, still told, to create a different scene from the actual truth which may not be actually harmful is the myth of the romance between Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. This was business PR which was a benefit to both of them and was not actually harmful unless you count the fact that many people would be slightly upset that this romance was not real.

The actual truth is this: Kate was gay and Spencer was straight. And they both loved booze and acting. Though they were fond of each other, their essential ties were the craft of acting and the consumption of booze. Spencer was an inveterate binge drinker and Kate was known in Hollywood as being able to drink anybody, man or woman under the table if she chose to do so. Kate and Spencer never owned or shared a house together and, most likely, never a bed either unless they were both too drunk to adjourn to their separate houses.

Mrs. Spencer Tracy wanted to preserve her title of "Mrs. Spencer Tracy" but some story had to be concocted as to why Spencer could not divorce and marry Kate. So the story was that Mrs. Tracy was Catholic and could not divorce. But the truth is that Mrs. Tracy was Episcoplalian and could have easily divorced and Spencer was protected. The general public did not know that Kate was a lesbian so the Tracy lie covered her tracks too. I grew up in Kate's home community and the fact of her lesbianism was well known there though not advertised as a general rule.

It was clever PR for both of them and it worked beautifully. Did it hurt anyone? Probably not. Except for those who believe in every story that Hollywood puts out about their own.

But then there are lies that are meant to hurt and destroy. In my case, a psychiatrist, who is still still living lied when he did not tell me that the ingestion of lithium for over five years would guarantee that I would develop kidney disease. In addition, he lied by omission when he did not tell me that he had ordered that blood tests to determine when I came down with kidney disease were not to be done. His plan was for me to contract fatal kidney disease, which is a silent killer and die in his hospital.

But why?

Why would a doctor who has sworn a Hippocratic oath to "First, do no harm" do this? For this doctor, it was simple. He had been offfered $2 million dollars by my adoptive mother for his hospital to keep me until she died. The best way to assure that the hospital got the money was to make sure I died before my adoptive mother did.

However, this psychiatrist, who lives in CT and is a graduate of George Washington University, Phi Beta Kappa and George Washington Medical School, Summa Cum Laude underestimated me. He didn't count on me getting out of the hospital and finding his written orders that prove he deliberately tried to murder me. Read all the details in "Surviving High Society". Available from my website, www.survivinghighsociety.com as well as Amazon and Kindle.

Drug Marketing

The marketing of drugs in this country is out of control.

The pharmaceutical industry has become extraordinarily adept at creating medicines that are perhaps less than 1% different than drugs already on the market and then trumpeting "a new, better drug" to deal with such and so a disease. In some cases, the industry takes a problem which is relatively small, exaggerates the extent and number of people with this "problem" and presto, presents the solution to this problem with a new pill. In the August 20, 2009 edition in my paper, the Gainesville Sun, comes this sentence: "A growing body of evidence suggests that doctors at some of America's top medical schools have been attaching their names and lending their names to scientific papers that were drafted by ghostwriters working for drug companies- articles that were carefully calibrated to help the manufacturer sell more drugs." So who do you believe now and where do you get real facts?

And where is the FDA in all of this? According to Melody Petersen, in "Our Daily Meds", the bar for approving new drugs is so low as to be be laughable if it were not so serious. All a company has to prove is that their new drug is better than a placebo....in other words, better than no treatment at all. There is no requirement that drugs for the same ailment be tested so than the FDA can compare effectiveness. It just has to be better than "nothing" (a placebo) and the marketing begins.

Serious marketing of a drug for as many purposes as possible is perhaps best shown in the story of Neurontin. This drug was approved as a drug to treat epilepsy when a primary epilepsy drug was not successful. But doctors began to use it for many other purposes, for instance in the treatment of manic-depressiveness. This is a practice that is called "off-label" use. Pushing products for "off-label" use is illegal but the company that produced Neurontin did it anyway. Complaints began to pour into the FDA because of the side effects of the "off-label" use of Neurontin.

In May, 2004, Warner Lambert, then a division of Pfizer pleaded guilty to criminal charges in their marketing of Neurontin and agreed to a $430 million dollar fine.

From January 23, 2002 until May 8, 2002, my psychiatrist in Gainesville, FL, who still does extensive clinical trials for drug companies prescribed Neurontin for me for a non-existent case of manic-depressiveness. Another drug he prescribed for my non-existent manic depression helped to worsen a severe kidney dysfunction. For more details, see my book, "Surviving High Society".

CIA Assassination Attempt

July 17, 2009

Mr. William Falk, Editor-in-Chief
The Week
55 West 39th Street
NY, NY 10018

Dear Mr. Falk,

I just received my copy of the July 24th, 2009 edition of The Week. In it, there is an article on page 4 titled: “The CIA’S Secret Plan: Did Cheney commit a crime?”The article is in error because there is documentary proof that the CIA attempted to assassinate Osama bin Laden in 2003. The CIA team was assisted by Afghan soldiers.

The whole plan was explained in detail by the head of the operation (a CIA man in disguise) on “60 Minutes” last Sunday. The same program was also broadcast last fall by “60 Minutes”.

The segment showed maps, described strategy and included substantial film shot by the CIA team within yards of Tora Bora on that night. The CIA commander told of two plans he wanted to execute but “Was denied permission with no explanation”. In the first plan, the CIA team had wanted to approach Bin Laden’s hideout from the backside instead of climbing up a hill but they were not allowed to do that….no reason given. The CIA leader also mentioned that the Afghan allies “went home at night” and left the Americans in danger.

There was a very clear implication by the CIA leader of this assault team that he believed that if his team had been allowed to do what they had been trained to do and could have done, if given permission, Osama bin Laden would have been killed.

Fireflies

The summer I was seven, it was very hot and there were lots of fireflies every night in our yard in the house near Long Island Sound. I was sure that these swarms were sent by some magical hand which swished these flickering lights onto our lawn as dusk came. They danced and sparkled all over the lawn and I fell in love with them.

I felt I had to hold on to the beauty from their lights for as long as I could. I dragged my Dad out onto the lawn. "Look, Dad, aren't they beautiful?"

"Yes, they are!" In the dusk, I could see him smiling at my delight.

"Can you help me catch some? I love their lights so!"

"Well, yes, we probably could catch some in a mayonnaise jar and use some paper to put some air holes on the top . But you will have to let them go after a bit so they can live."

We got an almost empty mayonnaise jar, washed it out and made a paper top pricked with a pin for airholes. I ran around the yard until I had captured three of the dancing lights. The paper top went on and was secured by a rubber band. I watched in awe as the lights twinkled on and off. "I'm going to put them by my bed, so I can see them until I fall asleep and their light will be the first thing I see in the morning!"

My Dad put his arm around my shoulder. "If you imprison them that long, they will die because they need more oxygen and room than is in the jar."

"No, no, they won't die! They wouldn't do that!"

Dad hugged me and said, "Well, you do what you have to do and we'll talk in the morning."

So I put the jar with the fireflies in it by my bed and the last thing I saw before I slept was their light. And when I woke in the morning, it was as Dad had predicted. They lay, dead, jumbled in a heap of wings and bodies. With tears forming in my eyes, I stumbled down to breakfast and showed the jar to Dad.

Taking the jar gently from hands and putting it the table, he gave me a hug as my tears rolled onto his collar. Pushing me away a bit, he then looked me straight in the eyes and said, "Sometimes you must just enjoy beauty and let it go away and be glad that you have seen it. Then the memory of it will be with you forever."

For the rest of the summer, I would watch the fireflies at night for as long as I could. The memory of their sparkling light is with me decades later.

Losing people

I was employed as a tour guide when the new headquarters of the Connecticut Bank and Trust Co. (now Bank of America) opened in Hartford, CT. in June, 1963. My boss, Mrs. Griggs, considered me to be "most conscientious". I took my job seriously, probably too seriously, but since it was the first job I had ever had, I was determined to be a crackerjack at it.

Sometimes the groups we guided were too large to fit into one elevator when we went from the mezzanine up to the sixth floor (the Trust department) so we were told to split up such groups and tell the other half to "join us on the sixth floor".

I split up a group about lunchtime one day, arrived at the sixth floor and found that the other half had not arrived. I waited around a bit, hoping they would appear but they didn't. I was a wreck for the rest of the tour and when it was over, I searched a couple of the other floors. I never again saw the second half of my group and no one reported seeing them.

Absolutely dejected, I reported back to the basement area where our lounge was situated and told Mrs. Griggs, "I'm sorry. I lost one half of my tour. I don't know where they are!"

She looked at me in disbelief and then started to laugh as I told her what happened. Then, giving me a big hug, she said, "Well, we'll just have to call them 'the ghost tour' and be on the watch for them." I finally began to relax. After that, every once in a while, after a long day, Mrs. Griggs would ask me, "So have you found that 'ghost tour' yet?" And everyone in the room would laugh.

Medicated Soldiers

It seems that the general population is not the only place where people are taking far too much medication to get through the day.

In the military, a situation has developed where recruitment officers are so hungry for breathing bodies that virtually no medication will disqualify one for deployment even after multiple tours of duty. Approximately 15% of those on active duty serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are now on anti-depressants, anti-anxiety medication and sleeping pills. Some soldiers take a combination of all of these as well as pain killers and alcohol. A combination of Klonopin for anxiety, Zoloft for depression and Ambien for sleep is not unusual. It has been reported that Seroquel is being used to help with nightmares although that is not an approved use for the drug. Seroquel is used to treat bi-polar disease and schizophrenia and some side effects include dizziness and paranoia.

Frankly, the idea of so many heavily armed soldiers with these amounts of medication in them scares the living hell out of me. I would suspect that all horrible incidents of murder and suicide have not been reported. An army which is drugged to this extent cannot be effective in the long run.

How Many Millions are Sick?

I find it appalling that the number of supposedly mentally ill children and cost for "needed care" in the US seems to climbing at an astronomical rate.

In 2006, 4.6 million children under the age of 18 were treated for some kind of mental illness at $193 a child, or $8.9 billion dollars for total treatment. Now in 2009, there are approximately 74 million children in the US and most "experts" will tell you that 20% of them need psychiatric treatment of one sort or another. So that would be 14.8 million children needing treatment. Using the 2006 rate of $193 a child for treatment, the cost will be $28.7 billion for total treatment in 2009.

President Obama has just suggested that the budget should be cut by $17 billion, or .o5% of the federal budget. It seems that psychiatric care for our children will be 52% of that budget cut as computed in 2006 dollars.

My financial sense tells me that the actual cost will be far higher as health care costs have escalated. Using a figure of $225 per child, the total cost might be closer to $33.3 billion or almost twice (1.96%) the amount of the President's proposed cut in the budget.

What a fabulous windfall for those in the psychiatric and pharmaceutical businesses! Do we really have that many sick kids? And if so, do we really need to spend that amount of money to get them well?

I believe there are lots of different kinds of people who smell a pot of money that makes their noses wrinkle up and their mouths water. With that kind of money at stake, there's apt to be at least a few bad actors lurking around. $33 billion is a pretty sweet pot.

ECT

In the old days, ECT or electroshock therapy was used to lift depression. The idea was that the electric shock waves would joggle the brain a little and the patient would then begin to be able to think in different ways....hopefully, in more positive ways. Over the years, I was given 20 shock therapy sessions.

I was laid on a table with a pillow under my knees. After being given a light anesthetic, electric shock waves were administered to the sides of my head with small machines that resembled head phones. An attendant stood by to make sure that the small grand mal sizure that was sure to follow did not knock me off the table or cause me to jerk so badly that I broke any of my bones. I was told that my memory would be fuzzy for a day or so and that my walk would be a little uncertain and then things would return to normal. And that was what happened. I trusted the doctors, had no fear of the treatment, had little discomfort afterwards and the depression went away. I didn't know about the grand mal seizures until years later and then I realized that my brain had been intentionally (with my permission) damaged twenty times.

When I saw a ECT patient lose her ALL her short term and ALL her l0ng term memory FOREVER, I was horrified and frightened. What damage had been done to my brain that could never be repaired? How long would it be before the damage became manifest? At the age of 68, almost 35 years later, my increasing inability to hold onto names or to remember how to get to someone's house I have visited in the recent past may be the result of increasing age or may be a long term effect of the ECT. I don't believe I will ever know the answer to that question.

When I see in the papers that a form of ECT (deep-brain stimulation) is now being proposed for a type of illness called OCD, I fear for the ramifications and extension of such treatments. How many kinds of patients will be electrified without knowledge of long term effects? Is this kind of treatment getting out of control?

Copper pipes

A number of homeowners across the US have been awakened to a situation which requires prompt attention and has an expensive solution. From about 1980-2000, houses that were built on a slab usually had copper water pipes installed underneath the slab of the house. American copper had became too expensive and so Brazilian copper was substituted for the purer American copper.

Now, slab houses built with Brazilian copper water pipes have a problem. The copper pipes are developing little green spots on the inside of the pipes which gradually totally rot out into holes. The pipes silently begin to leak water. Homeowners don't often notice it until they hear strange sounds in the house or the water bill becomes astrononically high due to the ongoing water loss from underground.

Fixing one leak is like chasing cockroaches....there are always more leaks. And homeowners's insurance won't help because that insurance only covers "damage from leaks not damage to the pipes themselves". The only permanent solution is to "repipe" your house for water. In other words, you create another system to get water to the water sources in your house. This expensive solution involves stringing a PVC line into your house from the water meter through your attic and then connecting new water lines downward to all water sources.

It means carving holes into ceilings, laundry room walls, bedroom walls, bathroom walls and into tiled showers which then later must be re-paired. It means emptying everything out of kitchen cabinets, bathroom cabinets and linen closets when the plumber arrives. If you decide to shut off water to the house so as to minimize the leaking (a good idea), it means filling bottles for drinking water and buckets to flush toilets when you take a shower. It means trying not to fill up the dishwasher by microwaving meals and eating on paper plates. Every time the water is turned on and off, someone must go to the main shutoff valve where a hole has been dug in the ground next to the water meter. "Re-piping" means having plumbers in your house for four days running and having the cat hide under the bed in the far bedroom so the noise doesn't hurt her ears so much.

Living with restricted water reminds me, as hurricanes do, how precious that clear liquid we call "water" is. There are millions upon millions of people in the world who would be delighted to live with the irritations I have just described. We sometimes forget how fortunate we are.[adsense:]

On the name "Marvin"

The first time I was allowed to go out to do a volunteer job during the time when I was hospitalized, I elected to do hospital work. Since the only hospital that would accept volunteers from a mental hospital was the local Jewish hospital, I went there and volunteered, both as a patient and after hospitalization for almost a year.

I enjoyed it tremendously and the ladies there were most kind to me, some of them almost treating me as a daughter. They gave me all sorts of pep talks and particularly admired my skills at being able to get the cranky mimeograph machine to work any day of the week. I never got the feeling that the fact that I had been in "hospital" and was Christian to boot made any difference to any of them. One lady always made a fuss over my blond wavy hair. How she wished her daughter could have that......naturally, though, of course!

After a year, I approached the Christian hospital where I had been a patient suffering from pneumonia and ear infections when I was a child of five. I got my boss at the Jewish hospital to write a recommendation which evidently was glowing.

The director of volunteers at the Christian hospital asked me with a slight frown, "Why do you want to come here?"

I looked at her for a moment and a thought began to form in my mind. "I wanted to be among my own people". She stared at me for a long moment and the long moment began to be uncomfortable. Finally, I said, "My last name is "Marvin" but I'm not Jewish. My mother served on the Women's Auxilliary Board here for many years."

A tremendous look of relief appeared on her face as well as a huge smile. "How wonderful! When would you like to start work?"

To Anonymous Comment on Mayflower descent

There are probably hundreds of thousands of people who are descended from the Mayflower and would like to "claim that descent" as my anonymous commentator said.

Although I was adopted in the era when any knowledge of my background was jealously guarded (even my original birth certificate was falsified with a wrong name for my mother), there is one way which can unlock many of the secrets of adoption. It is the way I found my natural family.

In many states, if an adoptee can present to the probate judge in the district where they were born, a certificate signed by a doctor saying that said adoptee has an inheritable medical condition which could be passed on to any children, most likely the probate judge will order that the original family should be found so that medical information about the family as a whole can be passed on to the adopted person.

In my case, a probate judge in Chicago ordered that my family should be found based on a doctor's signed note that I had bi-polar disease. My genetic family was found in a matter of weeks. The cost to me was in the $600 range. I found a brother (and his wife and two children), an uncle and four first cousins and their children in 2001. I am still in touch with many of them, particularly my brother and his wife. One of my cousins is into genealogy and took my maiden (adopted) name and showed me how I was related by blood, through my natural maternal grandmother to my adoptive father who had a Mayflower heritage reaching back to William Brewster

The irony for me was the fact that the doctor who sent the letter to the judge and other doctors before him had lied. I am not bi-polar. But because of their lies, I found my roots.

The First Dog

Don’t mistake me, I like dogs. There was always a dog in the house when I was growing up. There was also a cat but when I came along, Mother thought it would not be safe to have the cat around a baby and so she gave the cat to one of my baby nurses. As I grew up, it gradually occurred to me that Mother very often seemed to worry about things that were not as important as she thought they were. And she did not worry about things that were quite important to quite a lot of people. And it always seemed strange to me that she never talked about the cat that was given away. Did she really love Fluffy or could animals or babies just be disposed of without a second thought?
The house in Connecticut was closed up during the WWII when I was about 5 and we went to live in NYC as Dad’s job in the Army in WWII required that he had to report to duty in Newark, NJ on a daily basis. Mother refused to live in NJ. Evidently she had decided that there was no “decent” place to live in Newark, the social life would be zero and the inconveniences of shopping for anything would just be too great to bear. So we moved into a apartment at the Barclay Hotel. It was far different from living in a 6,000 sq ft house on 2 ½ acres of land but I liked the compactness. It meant I could be close, literally, to people without too much effort and that made me feel warmer inside myself.
I decided that I was going to make friends with Sandy, the middle aged cocker spaniel who hadn’t really taken to me at all. I never could understand why Sandy hadn’t been given away too, just like the cat. I once asked Mother that question and she looked at me oddly. “Well, Fluffy had claws that might have really hurt you. Besides, cats like to lick all sorts of things and I didn’t want Fluffy to lick you with a dirty tongue.”
Mom and Dad had gone out to a cocktail party and Catherine, the nurse, was giving my younger adopted brother his dinner. I wanted to turn on the radio, but I couldn’t get to it as it was wedged in between a lot of books in a bookcase and I didn’t see anything that I could drag over to the bookcase so I could climb up and try to turn the knobs so that some music would come on. I loved to move to music.
Having nothing else to do, I approached Sandy in the living room of our apartment. Sandy was brown all over, from head to toe. I thought that it would have been much more interesting for him to have other bits of color on him. It seemed to me that all humans wore different colors at the same time. Sometimes when I was taken for a walk, I saw dogs and cats that were dressed up in various ways with fancy collars and sometimes sweaters and vests. But Sandy never had any special clothes. I thought that was a little unfair because it did seem that my family had enough money to buy at least one outfit for Sandy. And I felt a little sorry for him because Dad said “he’s getting old” with a sad voice. I concluded that “getting old” was not a good thing.
And so I was wandering around the living room, humming to myself and trying to make a little dance to go along with the humming. I was trying to remember just what the song sounded like on the radio before it was turned off as Mom and Dad had gone out to dinner.
Sandy was standing near his dinner bowl which on the floor a foot or so away from him. He looked as if he couldn’t decide whether to eat or not. So I decided that this would be a good time to try make friends with him He never seemed to like it when I tried to pet him and I had gathered from adult talk that he might be jealous of me because I got so much attention when I came into the house, newly adopted, and he was not the biggest attraction anymore. But, it seemed to me that the way to start a relationship was to start asking some him some questions.
The obvious subject at hand to start talking about was about was his dinner. So I bent down, and tried to ask him if he wanted his dinner now or not. I began pushing the bowl toward his nose and then pulling it back trying to get him to tell me if he wanted to eat or not. It never occurred to me that he would not understand that I was trying to be nice to him. And that I wanted to be his friend.
After about five of my “questions”, Sandy gave me his answer. He lunged at me and grabbing my left hand in his mouth, bit down hard making my hand bleed. He had really hurt me and I decided right then that he was never going to be my friend.
I now had another problem as I walked around the living room in silent tears, sucking the blood out of the bite on my left hand. I could not disturb the nurse, Catherine who was definitely not my friend. She had made it clear to me by ignoring me and clucking incessantly over my brother, Ted, that she was not interested in me at all. So at all costs, I had to keep this injury out her sight or I was going to be in trouble with her.
I saw one of my father’s handkerchiefs that had been left on a small table and wrapped it tightly around my hand. Then I walked into my parents’ bedroom and climbed up on the bed trying not to think of the pain in my hand. Being in that bedroom put me as far away from Catherine as possible as she was giving my adopted brother his dinner in our bedroom which was on the other side of the apartment. After a while, I went back into the living room, found one of my books, climbed up on a chair and spread the book out on my knees so that I could put my injured hand under the book which helped to steady the book and then I could turn a page or two with the other hand.
It was a picture book of Goldilocks and the three bears. Somehow the story seemed a little familiar but yet opposite to the drama that was playing out in my living room right now. The bears were being thrown out of their beds by Goldilocks but in my life, the bear (Sandy) was throwing me out of his room. I thought, people were supposed to be in control of things, especially dogs. But I certainly was not in control of Sandy. Everything seemed to be upside down.
But the bigger issue was to stay out of Catherine’s sight and I managed to do that until my parents came home. As it was not too late, Ted, Catherine and I greeted Mom and Dad in the living room. I made an exaggerated point of keeping my left hand behind my back.
Catherine told Mother, “Both of them were good as gold”.
Mother looked at me. “What’s the matter with your hand, Patty?
“Nothing”.
Mother whirled on Catherine, “What happened?”
Catherine stared at Mother. “Well, Mrs. Marvin, I don’t know that anything happened.”
Mother stepped forward and pulled my hand out from my back and saw the bloodied handkerchief.
Her eyes drilled into me, “What happened?”
“Sandy bit me.”
“Catherine, get that wound attended to and then come talk to me. Alone.”
Catherine, silent and white as a sheet, bathed my hand and put antiseptic and a bandage on the place where I was to carry two scars on my left hand from then on. After Catherine bandaged my hand, and went to her conference with Mother, I went into the living room.
My Dad swept me up in his arms. “Now tell me what this was all about.”
I told him, sobbing, that I wanted to make friends with Sandy and that Catherine liked Ted and not me and that I didn’t have anyone to talk to. That I couldn’t even reach up to the radio to hear some music. I told him that I didn’t like being alone and that I felt that if I had Sandy as a friend, I wouldn’t feel so alone so much of the time.
He rocked me in his arms and told me he was sorry that I felt alone. He promised me he would spend more time with me and would make sure that Mother would not get angry with me over what happened. His eyes were misty but his hugs made me feel so much better that I hopped off his lap and asked him if he would put the radio on so I could listen to music. Some Big Band music flooded through the room and I began to dance. Nothing was upside down anymore. And to make things even better, Catherine didn’t work for us very long after that night.

Feeling Good!

Everybody loves compliments and I have been getting one compliment over and over again about my book, "Surviving High Society" that pleases me so much when I hear it!

That's when someone says, "It moves right along and I can't put it down!"

I've sold 100 of my own books by myself and that is the comment I get almost 100% of the time. It really makes me feel good.

Bank of America

What the hell has happened to the bank where my Dad was the proud head of the Trust Department?

When he served the bank in CT, it was called the Hartford Connecticut Bank& Trust Co. and had a sterling reputation that dated back to the 1700's. After Dad retired in 1950, the bank began to merge and merge and grow like an overripe tomato. At one point, it went on a gargantuan spending spree and got so obese that Fleet Bank had to buy it out. And then came more spending sprees when it became Bank of America which continued the spending spree. BOA bought some of the worst assets ever...Country Wide and Merrill Lynch. Overall lending practices made a sane person cry and dishonest/illiterate/naive people ran to the doors of BOA and its subsidiaries to get more and more loans based on no income, no assets and no job.

BOA has had two government infusions of taxpayer's money and is now, probably, going to ask for more money from the government because it's almost broke again with a truckload of toxic assets to boot! BOA's behavior over an extended period of time is a prime example of the actions that that got us into the present US financial dung hole. Horrifically, the dung hole has widened and has dragged most of the rest of the world down with us into the dirty pit that the we have dug so well. Unfortunately, the rest of the world had enough sleazebags to match the greedy pusses in our country so that this financial disaster touches most of the capital in the rest of the world. As of now, no light can be seen reaching to the bottom of this wretched hole.

For reasons not connected to the sleazebags of the past few years, I managed to get two family trusts that benefit me out of BOA into another bank that did not engage in the above nefarious practices.I had objected to high fees and low performance with income coming to me which is often accepted by other recipients of trust money. After all, for most people, trust money is "found money". But my monthly check is essential money for me. And I'm doubly blessed because I'm lucky I'm not dead so I can enjoy what I have!

I was a true pain in the ass to BOA for years and I'm sure that the Hartford Probate Court judge drew a deep breath whenever he saw my name on the calendar. It took years of persistent work to get those trusts out of BOA and I'm proud of my work.

So here's to the Boys of Aphidland......So long, goodbye,and hello t0 6% a year!

Responsibility

What a long word! What does it mean? Well, the dictionary talks about "Being morally accountable, and reliable". How long does it take one to truly understand the outlying borders or the nearest globule of such broad directives? My Dad, as I have discussed in "Surviving High Society" was the first one who taught me that usually whatever one does has a consequence and that in many cases, it makes sense to try to think a little about the consequences before you do or say something which could be significant.

In 1962, when I was 21 years old, I made a promise to my dying father that I would do whatever I could to protect my younger adoptive brother. I made the promise because I loved my father dearly and because I knew he needed to hear the promise. But I hoped and prayed I would not have to follow through on that promise.

And for a long time, I didn't have to do anything because Ted and I lived very different lives in different states. I had lived by the premise that if one lived responsibly on one's own (did not lie, or steal or cheat and did not do stupid things like getting stoned or drunk every night), that would be enough. I lived alone then and my responsibilities were just my own....no husband, no children.... just my cat, my car, my job, my mortgage, a few friends, etc.

The phone call came out of the blue from an adjoining state in 1983.

It was Ted and he was definitely in trouble. Drunk, living in a motel, he reported that he ate "One dozen fried eggs and a bottle of scotch for breakfast.....his main meal of the day." We talked for a bit and I got the name of the motel and his phone number. After putting the phone down, I cried for five minutes.

And I remembered the promise I had made to my ashen faced father who would die eight months later. What could I possibly do for this man, this brother, I barely knew? There were so many reasons why I was unable to help. I had no medical degree, no expertise in alcohol abuse, no fortune I just could dip into and just support him. I lived 150 miles away and dreaded the idea of trying to find his motel in Boston. I had many commitments to an organization in the town I lived in. I felt as if I was being asked to be a good Samaritan and I wasn't sure I wanted to do that. How involved was it all going to be?

As I cried, my Dad's face kept coming up in front of me. He had been the most moral and reliable man that I had ever known. And I had made that promise. I kept trying not to remember that I had done that. Robert Frost's verse kept pushing its way into my head. "But I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep." I had gone many miles and had slept many sound nights. Now it was time to keep a promise.

Drying my tears, I picked up the phone again, dialed the Bank and asked for Ted's trust officer. I started a conversation to see what could be done for him. There was much that had to be done over the years. But I never regretted making that call.

The Gavel Has Been Passed Again

The gavel has been passed again. To a leader who faces wars, financial distress and conflicts outside our borders which threaten to undermine our way of life and life on this planet itself. At home, we face a crisis of confidence that we cannot pull ourselves out of a seeming endlessly deepening hole of miseries.

But I have confidence that this slim, handsome, educated man believes in his core that working with our brains to encircle those who might now oppose us and using our assets to lift up those willing to work is the only way to emerge from the gloom we now see around us. It will not be the work of six months or four years. President Obama has set us on a path that will stretch down many years.

As the President has asked that the nation reflect on service to others, I pledge to put my hand with renewed vigor to the task that I have set myself: to inform others of my life so that they will not make my mistakes nor suffer the results of the harm that others pushed on me.
In that way, I shall bear witness to a cornerstone of this nation which is to speak the truth.

And you and I will be freer because of the witness I have just begun.

Angels

I just had an angel walk in my open door. I wasn't wishing for it but somehow she knew she needed to help me. I was wrestling with a problem and then, basically out of the blue came some good advice without my even asking for it.

I feel so warm all over. Just the way I felt when I was with my Dad and I knew I was safe. But sometimes, now, my first angel, my Dad can't communicate with me the way he used to do. So I guess he just asked this other gal to step into his place, at least for a little while.

Memorial Services

I just went to a memorial service for someone I did not know very well in a club in which I have membership There were about 125 people in a large hall.

The service was almost two hours long and nine relatives spoke at varying lengths. They aged from about 4-63. Everyone single one of them cried except, one, the four year old who could not pronounce most of the words from the Bible verses that were held for him to read. The seventeen year old read his essay for a college admisssions forms titled "The Person Who Has Influenced Me Most". Of course , he had learned all of his grandmother's teachings perfectly and was very proud of that fact. One adult had to leave the stage because he could not stop crying.

Of the five other people who spoke, three cried and one had forgotten to bring the poem she had intended to read. So she winged it and ended with a sob. The youngest children, by this point, were crying in the audience in various states of frustration.

At my father's funeral, which 1800 people attended, no one cried from the pulpit, and no family members spoke. But two of Dad's good friends spoke and and also related some humerous stories about him. The traditional church service lasted about an hour.

Different strikes for different folks!

Old murders

I see on the Web that a deal has been made over the last nude and semi-nude photos that were taken of Marilyn Monroe. I am not alone when I say that she was murdered. Suffice it to say that she "died" on the Sunday before she planned to give a news conference about a lot of the details of her relationships with John K. and Bobby K. She had announced that briefing publicly the previous Thursday.

All this reminds me of the plot that my mother made with a psych hospital which turned into an attempted murder plot. She was to give them a lot of money and they were to keep me there for life. If I had stayed, the drugs they were giving me, in a deliberate plan, would have killed me. All that effort and they didn't get the money and I have proof of what they did!

I don't think that people who try to murder other people are very nice.

What do you think?

Kate Hepburn

My husband says that I am often at my best when I follow the dictum "Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead!"

That's exactly the way Kate Hepburn conducted her life. And it's not surprising that I do the same thing as Kate although I do try to think of consequences when I charge ahead. Kate and and I were brought up in the same communityas both our families settled in Hartford, Ct and had summer homes in the Borough of Fenwick, which is a section of the town of Old Saybrook, CT.

Kate's niece, Kathy ("Guess Who's Coming to Dinner") and I were childhood playmates and spent lots of time in Kate's house in Fenwick together. In my book, "Surviving High Society" I relate a few unknown stories about Kate.

Kate was absolutely determined to live life exactly as she wanted to and she did. The fact that other people had rights similar to hers was something she didn't think very much about. She was Kate and that was that.

Kate Hepburn and me

What kind of mutt was I?

When I was born, I was an unwanted mutt. But what kind?

Declared "illegitimate" at birth and rushed into an adoption agency less than 24 hours later, I was a "non-person". The nurses, at least gave me a name: Della. But later I got another name: Patricia Elizabeth. And I became a debutante in high society and went to a fancy debutante ball in a beautiful debutante dress.

But who was I?

Sherlock Holmes would have loved this: I found out I am related to my adopted family. So the unwanted mutt turned out be a legitimate part of high society!

So you think it's easy to be rich?

Rest in Peace, Maybe

You would think that the rich, after a long and prosperous life would rest well in death. It ain’t necessarily so.

In 1941, my Mother decided to build a family mausoleum that would contain her parents and our family and a number of our descendants. She approached the appropriate committee of our local cemetery, which was established in 1866 and encompasses about 270 acres. It contains the remains of a number of distinguished individuals. Many of them, including Katharine Hepburn, who is buried not far from our plot, were famous the world over.

Mother picked out a corner lot that backed up to a small pond, which is owned by the Cemetery. It had remained vacant for a long time. The Cemetery Association had put a very high price on it due to the location and its vicinity to the small pond, which was an extraordinary backdrop for any structure.The Association sold the lot to Mother on the condition that they would have a final say over whether or not the proposed structure would properly enhance the beautiful setting. If, in their opinion it did not enhance the property, they would not allow it to be built. Mother agreed to all of the Cemetery Association’s conditions.
The Association’s members were delighted with the plans presented for our family mausoleum and work began on it. In later years, the design won a national award for such structures. Mother arranged to have the caskets of her mother and father brought from Cleveland and they rested in the Cemetery’s chapel while the new mausoleum was being built. Upon completion of the mausoleum the two caskets were re-interred in the wall of the left side of the mausoleum.

When completed, there was room for four caskets on each side of two opposing walls of marble with room for three more in the floor. Several more plots are available in the lawn in front of the front steps. A marble shelf rests below the window that looks out onto the Cemetery pond. The structure is encased in Vermont granite with two steps leading up to elaborately carved solid bronze doors that were made to order in Italy. Two Doric granite columns guard the doors.

Sometime in the seventies, the spokesman for the cemetery called Mother to tell her that some serious damage had been done to the bronze doors. An employee who had been fired by the Cemetery and who knew where all the “special care” monuments were placed decided to take revenge on his former employer. He took a loaded shotgun and fired at every single monument which had had special monies donated by their families for perpetual care. Both doors of our mausoleum took the full brunt of a frontal attack from that shotgun. It was thought at first that one side could not be repaired. Both of the doors were taken down. The mausoleum was boarded up and the doors were sent back to Italy to be repaired. In six months they came back and were re-installed. On the more badly damaged door, the bronze decoration was taken off, turned around, repaired and replaced so the more heavily damaged side was now facing to the inside of the mausoleum so that the damage would not be so easily noticed.

When my husband and I returned in November 2007 to inter my brother’s ashes, the superintendent engaged us in a conversation on the lawn as the some workers tried to remove the slab so Ted’s ashes could be interred. Unfortunately, the necessary skilled workers were not available so we had to leave my brother’s ashes on the shelf until the superintendant found the proper help to remove the slab after we left for our home 1200 miles away the next day.

After the discussion of the shotgun attack had been reviewed, the superintendant said, “Oh, you heard about the other door incident, didn’t you?”
“No.”
“The one that happened about four years ago?”
“No, no one notified me about that. Please tell me about it.”
“Well, one morning our workmen were just making their usual rounds first thing in the morning and they saw large tire tracks gouged into this lawn up to the steps of you mausoleum.”
“What kind of tracks?”
“Well, it looked as if it might have been a pretty heavy pick-up truck. We found a piece of the rope they had used.”
“Rope?”
“Yeah, we figure they came up here, put heavy ropes around the handles of the doors, attached the rope to the pick-up truck and then they tried to pull the bronze door off your mausoleum. Bronze doors like that can bring pretty good money as decoration. Or, at the very least, they could have sold the bronze as scrap metal.”

I was speechless.

Jim said, “Well you have to be pretty desperate to try something like that!”

“Yeah,” laughed the supervisor. “Equal parts drunk and/or stupid too!”

He continued, “You’ll notice, Mrs. Mulholland, that we took the handles off the door so someone can’t try that again.” As the doors had been swung open so the workmen could enter before we had arrived, I had not noticed that the handles were gone. When I looked back and looked at the doors, it did, indeed, look a little strange. One’s eye notices that something about the symmetry of the doors is amiss.

“What did you do with the handles?

“Oh, I think we just threw them away.”

I didn’t know what to say.

The supervisor added another little bit as we turned toward the car. “We also decided to put bullet proof Plexiglas over the window facing the pond because the kids come out here and use mausoleum windows as BB gun targets.”