Author: Eric Nilsson

AUGUST 15, 2023 – I don’t know exactly when “Uncle Bruce” became “UB,” but it was definitely after the verdict was in that he was out of his mind.  I think it was probably a way for my sisters and me, and Cliff, for that matter, to separate the Uncle Bruce whom we had known …

AUGUST 14, 2023 – (Cont.) On the long train ride home, Cliff and I had ample time to continue the open-ended conversation that we had begun a week earlier.  As the miles passed and Uncle Bruce was asleep in his compartment and Cory was snoozing in the upper bunk of ours, Cliff and I sat …

AUGUST 13, 2023 – (Cont.) Two days later, in fact, Uncle Bruce was well enough, confident enough, at least at the outset, to agree to Cliff’s idea for an “off-trail” adventure.  I was amazed that Uncle Bruce would go for it as far as he did.  At the Alpinglow, Cliff had seen a brochure touting …

AUGUST 12, 2023 – (Cont.) The next morning, after several ski runs with Cory and Uncle Bruce, the two of them stopped at the summit house for a break.  Cliff and I kept skiing.  On the first chairlift ride up together, Cliff asked drollfully, “Eric, how long has Uncle Bruce worn that toupee of his?” …

AUGUST 11, 2023 – (Cont.) It was one night over beers at the Bierstube just down from our ski lodge, however, when Cliff and I started talking in earnest about the dilapidated state of the real estate in which he had chosen to set down his business roots. “Eric, does your family know much about …

AUGUST 10, 2023 – (Cont.) He was the son of devout Catholics and had grown up in Teaneck, New Jersey, not far from Rutherford.  Cliff’s father owned a florist shop, though I wouldn’t learn that part of the story for another decade—May of 2006, to be exact . . . . . . Cliff and …

AUGUST 9, 2023 – (Cont.) Late that evening, we boarded Amtrak’s western bound Empire Builder. I had reserved a private compartment for Uncle Bruce, and a family-size compartment for Cliff, Cory and me. After getting Uncle Bruce situated, I led Cliff and Cory to the larger quarters.  It was quite late for an eight-and-a-half year …

AUGUST 7, 2023 – It was March 1988. Beth, Cory and I were just passing through Rutherford on our way to Boston. Grandpa had died just a month before, and it was a good time to see how Gaga and Uncle Bruce were doing.  Four years had passed since my previous visit to Rutherford. While …

AUGUST 6, 2023 – I don’t believe that it was always that way—Dad calling all the shots. Mother was no shrinking flower and took after Grandpa when it came to domestic tranquility. He never flinched when Gaga invoked “house rules,” but he always complied. Likewise, during my lifetime, anyway, Mother never cowered when Dad imposed …

AUGUST 5, 2023 – Of the four of them—Gaga, Grandpa Holman, UB and Mother—Gaga aged most gracefully, at least in the mental department[1]. Although she was the source of acerbic quips, she was always in control of her mind, which never veered toward the guardrails. Typical of her matter-of-factness was a side comment she uttered …

AUGUST 4, 2023 – (Cont.) Mother’s hospitalization in 2012 was the most disturbing of all her hospital stays. Arriving in full-blown psychosis, she hit bottom, then at first seemed to improve—despite the name change . . . or perhaps because of it. When we visited her the day after the initial “storm,” we found her …

AUGUST 3, 2023 – (Cont.) After the immediate crisis was under control, the psychiatrist confirmed Elsa’s textbook-based diagnosis of Mother’s malady. The patient was put on a regimen of lithium and within a few days she regained a semblance of equilibrium. The equilibrium of the rest of the family, however, remained upset. Each of us …

AUGUST 2, 2023 – The past couple of days with Mother had been hell, and I imagine that they had been hell for her as well.  For the time being, I was back in my office, tending to my law work.  Just then, the phone rang.  It was Elsa. “Get this.”  She cut right to …

AUGUST 1, 2023 – Thus far I’ve posted less than one-half of the written portion of my incomplete memoir, Inheritance. I pause here to qualify a few aspects of this figurative travelogue through a significant swath of my life. What I’ve published to date are mostly pleasant reminiscences viewed through the prism of my youth. The story …

JULY 31, 2023 – When you’re fifty, three years go fast.  When you’re not even 10, three years are a big chunk of your life to that point.  So it seemed for me in the summer of ’64, when Mother, Jenny and I took the train out to New Jersey for a long visit.  My …

JULY 30, 2023 – After a proper thanks and farewell to Pete[1], I followed the welcoming committee—Gaga, Grandpa, and Uncle Bruce—up the sidewalk past the nicely appointed garden and patio, where a hot sun reflected brilliantly off one of those silver globes on a pedestal, the kind that I associated with rich people. The committee …

JULY 29, 2023 – Several years passed, and one Saturday afternoon in June 1961, while I was playing out in our spacious, oak-shaded yard, the newest, largest moving van in the fleet of Geo. B. Holman & Co., Inc., “agents for United Van Lines[1]” came growling down our quiet, sleepy street in Anoka, Minnesota and …

JULY 28, 2023 –  When I was a little boy, there was a large, framed map on my bedroom wall.  Mother told me it was of New Jersey, but she also told me that her home state was much older than Minnesota, so why it was called “New” and not “Old Jersey” was a mystery …

JULY 27, 2023 – It wasn’t until many decades later and Gaga was lying on her deathbed in the hospital, when I learned the origins of Uncle Bruce’s connection with the state of Vermont.  It was 1994—four years before the fire, of course, and all that it revealed, and thus my accepting (if not positive) …

JULY 26, 2023 – For the next four years, my life was consumed by the violin, and nowhere close to the state of Vermont, except for a few days during each Christmas vacation, when Uncle Bruce would invite me out to ski with him at Hogback[1]. Despite all the runs we took together, Uncle Bruce …

JULY 25, 2023 – (Cont.) Before lights out that Sunday night, I decided to fiddle with the old clock radio that Uncle Bruce had left behind on Parents’ Weekend.  Despite my best efforts, however, I could not get the alarm buzzer to work, and it was the buzzer that I had anticipated deploying in order …

JULY 24 2023 – (Cont.) Thus, in study hall the day after Uncle Bruce had surprised me with his phone call, I addressed my letter to him, the primary purpose of which was to answer his generous question, “What can I bring you on Parents’ Weekend?” There were two things that had been on my …

JULY 23, 2023 – (Cont.) So it was that in early September 1968, I joined 99 other “young men” from around the country (though mostly from the Northeast, despite the school’s attempt to achieve broader geographic diversity) in . . . wearing a coat and tie to all classes and sit-down meals served by student …

JULY 22, 2023 – What is life but fate, and what is fate but randomness woven into meaning through the course of life.  As the plane floated down onto the runway, marking the end of my Vermont ski trip with Uncle Bruce, I couldn’t have guessed that Vermont lay not behind me but in front …