Relationships & Family

My Perfectly Imperfect Thanksgiving Dinner

jbloustein — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:48:41 -0500

Remember the first Thanksgiving of your married life?

Remember wanting to make it perfect, so you’d make a good impression, especially on your mother-in-law?

I’ll never forget mine. It should have been a disaster. It almost was.

Let me start where every Thanksgiving dinner starts, with the turkey. I’m not a novice when it comes to turkey.

Starring Dad

jbloustein — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:40:27 -0500

How well do any of us really know our parents?

The whole world, it seemed, knew my dad, Jimmy Stewart.

A few years after my twin sister, Judy, and I were born, Look magazine named him the most popular movie star on the planet. To us he was just plain Dad.

Our Golden Girl

jbloustein — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:51:01 -0500

I write books for a living, but it took a dog to teach me what living was all about.

In the end she taught me about dying too, and how to let go of something you couldn’t imagine going on without.

Her name was Trixie and my wife, Gerda, and I would never be the same after she came into our lives.

Trixie was an inspiration. She restored our sense of wonder. She made us laugh and at times made us weep in anguish.

It's Still a Wonderful Life

admin — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:16:50 -0600

We see it on television every Christmas: a movie that continues to be a favorite from generation to generation.

And as It's A Wonderful Life nears its climax, there's a scene that always gives me a shiver. Because I know the story behind it.

The Dog Next Door

admin — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 09:32:55 -0600

When I was about 13 years old back home in Indiana, Pennsylvania, I had a dog named Bounce.

He was just a street dog of indeterminate parentage who had followed me home from school one day. Kind of Airdale-ish, but of an orange color, Bounce became my close companion. He'd frolic alongside me when I'd go into the woods to hunt arrowheads and snore at my feet when I'd build a model airplane. I loved that dog.

My Amazing Sheepskin Dream Coat

admin — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 11:34:13 -0600

You could always tell when Christmas was coming on The Hill, the Italian-immigrant neighborhood in St. Louis where I grew up—the Nativity scene appeared on the lawn of the rectory at St. Ambrose, our church.

The other sure sign was the store windows. They looked a little fancier, with sprayed-on "snow" and the best items on display. It was there, in one of those windows the year I was 10, that I saw the greatest thing I'd ever laid eyes on.

Stowed in My Suitcase

edward-grinnan — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:48:35 -0500

Uma Thurman
Where You Know Her From:
Her acting career includes several films including Dangerous Liaisons and Pulp Fiction, and she currently stars in the comedy Motherhood.

What Creates a Home Away from Home for Her: My kids

Torii Hunter Beats the Odds

admin — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:25:00 -0500

The first time Torii Hunter saw his father smoke crack cocaine, he was seven years old. He didn't understand what his dad was doing.

But that episode marked the beginning of a lifelong struggle for Hunter, a struggle of coping with the heartache of knowing that the father he loves is a drug addict. And a struggle of doing everything he could to get his father to give up drugs, only to fail time after time.

My Winning Strategy

admin — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Coach, the kids call me. For me, the most important meaning of the word goes all the way back to the 1500s, when a coach was a horse-drawn carriage with a specific purpose: to transport a person of importance from where he was to where he wanted to be or needed to be going.

A Father's Story

admin — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 09:55:48 -0600

This story is as much about my youngest son, Brian, as it is about me.

We're both quarterbacks. I played with the NFL's Miami Dolphins in the '60s and '70s, and Brian helped lead the University of Michigan football team to a national championship last year.

My playing days are over, but I still outline offensive strategies and dissect defenses most Saturday afternoons in the fall, as ABC-TV's color commentator for college football.