27. December 2011 by admin.

   Ed McCarthy, son of a commercial fisherman and fishing fleet owner, had worked his way through U Mass on scholarships and fellowships. Finally, as a PhD in Marine Science he had hired as a Fishery Biologist by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Stationed in Miami he met Joy Swan, a beautiful, petite singer at a party celebrating her 21^st birthday.

   Joy successfully latched onto him, rode with him back to his home in New Bedford, MA where they finally married. Her ambition to be a popular singer was achieved as a result of Ed and his father providing the money to hire a top PR company.

   Joy signed a contract to sing Country & Western and her marriage seemed forgotten. They divorced, but didn’t (through a legal prank). She continued singing and Ed, fully devoted to her, supported her all the way.

   Did the marriage survive Joy’s ambition?

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29. November 2011 by admin.

I have discontinued the weekly updates to ‘One Tour too Many’ to allow uninterrupted concentration on my new novel, Divorce Isn’t the End. I haven’t composed the blurb for the back cover, yet. For me that is the most challenging task in the writing of a novel. But I will compose it soon and publish it here.

Many of my earlier e-novels can be obtained through Barnes & Nobel. I directory of those currently available — with descriptions — can be view at my other website: www.RWMasters.com

You can leave comments on this blog site…or…

e-mail me directly at author@RWMasters.com

Thank you for your continued support.

R W (Bob) Masters

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20. October 2011 by admin.

An attractive college freshman Jewish girl meets a very handsome, red-headed, blue-eyed Irishman in the lunch line at the student cafeteria. Does she let on that she is Jewish? It becomes love at first sight and, eventually they marry and have a daughter.
Dad, now an established, affluent architect but also an Army reservist, is recalled to active duty. He is killed by a hidden bomb leaving his widow and daughter with the messed-up remains of his architectural practice.
How they survive in different ways is a story of tenacity, love and loyalty. And they find that not everyone is prejudiced (at least not against Jews).

Chapter 11 - Roger’s First Shopping Center

Roger’s project was a shopping center – the shopping center he had designed as a student at Yale. It was located in Abilene. He did a lot of commuting to Abilene during the construction phase. There was a general contractor (but the architect is still responsible) who had many sub contractors and I couldn’t help but wonder how anyone could keep track of all the activities that were ongoing simultaneously.

Their grand opening was Saturday, 4 November (1995). Esther and I were there with hundreds and hundreds of others. Roger was proud and I really think I was even more proud of my husband’s accomplishment. He wanted to be an architect and had worked very hard to achieve that goal. He had designed this shopping center while a student and the prospective owners liked it so much they paid to have it built. They wanted it completed in time for the holiday season and it was. And Roger had brought his share of revenue into the firm to the great satisfaction of the other partners and, especially, Al Johnston.

No matter how hard you supervise, there are always things that weren’t done quite properly and create little, but very vexing, problems. Roger’s shopping center was certainly no exception. It was many months before all the original construction problems were resolved. But our income for 1996 was scheduled to be $16,000 per month. I gasped when I saw that number. I knew that a lot of people made that kind of money and even much more but I never thought it could be us. No wonder he complained about army pay!

It was about a two-hour drive to Abilene and we made that trip frequently. Esther still had to sit in the special seat in the back but she didn’t mind as long as she could see out the windows. We frequently did our shopping in the shopping center. Just being inside it was very special to us. It had a food court as they called it and we ate many meals there. And as I looked at that shopping center I thought can there ever be a shopping center as beautiful as this?

Roger, though, had different ideas. He was finished with the Abilene shopping center and was anxious to do the next. But now he didn’t have a design or even a location. Getting the next client proved to be a very different challenge.

…and previously we posted …

Chapter 10 - Getting Settled

I mentioned that our new home was quite expensive. Actually it was considerably less expensive than many of the homes in Terrell Hills. I learned that if we wished to buy the house (we had a one year lease) it would cost us somewhere around $300,000. To me that is a rich man’s price. Then Roger told me that most of the homes were in the neighborhood of $500,000 and many were nearly a million dollars. Well driving through Terrell Hills I could certainly tell which homes were the most expensive. Ours was only a three bedroom (which was more than enough for us) which meant we would be paying $100,000 per bedroom. Yes this was a new world for me.

Al (Mr. Johnston) had the home very nicely furnished. I doubt I could have chosen as well. I was used to whatever furniture happened to be there and never thought about interior decoration. But there was one very important item missing.

“There’s no piano!”

“I guess I forgot that a music teacher would want to have a piano in her home. Where would we put it?”

“We can swap the sofa for the piano.”

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Yes, Roger really thought I was serious.

“We can get a Roland spinet and it will go nicely right here.”

I walked over to a spot between two overstuffed chairs. There was a rather useless table there at the moment but I am sure we could find somewhere else to put it. Plus it is rented so we could just return it.

“Okay. You do the piano purchase because only you would know what it is you want and I can have it delivered.”

“I am sure they will deliver it. Those stores usually do.”

The living room was in the center of the front of the house. The garage (two car) occupied the right front corner and the kitchen-dinette area occupied the left front corner. Behind the kitchen was the laundry room and the master bath. Behind them was the master bedroom. I should mention that the house was shaped like a squarish ‘U’ with a neat garden area (flowers, not veggies) in the center behind the living room and in between the two wings.

Behind the garage was a half-bath and behind that were two bedrooms between which was a full bathroom. Each bedroom as well as the living room had large, sliding patio doors opening to the central garden. The living room actually had two of these patio doors. So what was my reaction as we walked through the house examining the furniture, closets and what not? This is a lot of house to keep clean.

Esther was four. She was still too young for kindergarten but too active to just push off onto some baby sitter. Mrs. McCormick was continually teaching Esther things and kept her very occupied. I even suggested to Roger that we pay his folks way out here and they could live with us in this luxurious house.

“There is no way we are going to pry them out of New Haven. All their friends are there and they know the area better than most people know what the back of their hands look like. Sure we could tell them that they would quickly make friends here because there are a lot of older people living in the San Antonio area. It is considered a retiree’s paradise. That wouldn’t move them one inch. Why don’t you consider yourself Esther’s mother and do what my mother has been doing. There is no longer any need for you to work at some job to support us. I really appreciated it that you were able to do that but we’ve come up in the world. Is there anything wrong with being a stay-at-home mom?”

“I really enjoyed teaching, Roger. That was why I struggled through four years of college. That is why I have all those student loans to pay off. Yes, I would very much enjoy being a mother to my only daughter but, quite frankly, I don’t know how. Where can I get some lessons? I was well taught how to teach, and babysit – because there was a lot of that with the tweens that I taught – but I have no idea what or how to teach my own daughter.”

“I understand and I will see what I can find in the way of help. In the meantime it would be very good to read to her. We have our own library in Terrell Hills and I am sure they have hundreds of interesting children’s picture books. Why don’t you start there in the meantime?”

That made sense so the next morning four-year-old Esther and I visited the library and I really got an education. The librarian that glued herself to us seemed to be a virtual expert on teaching young children. We brought home a load of books and Esther enjoyed each one of them – many times over.

copyright 2011

We will post a new chapter each week. You can read previously posted chapters at www.RWMasters.com/

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