Author: duckshots

Lapsed lawyer. Reader. Photographer. Jewish. Strongly attached to loving, caring, wife-Sharon. Working at remaining relevant. Hoping that my body and mind outlive my dreams. Maybe something I blog will make some sense.

Sharon Duckman, 72

When people ask how long we have been married, I always say, “not long enough.” Without her, I would be a homeless person. Ageless. I cannot live without her, adoring even the difficult moments.

When I was suspended from the bench, preceding my removal and the end of my judicial career, I tried to go back to work after spending 7 months with her, full time. People asked how I felt, not really caring, but out of politeness. I said, “…, frankly I miss the time I got to spend with my wife.”

We moved and stayed together. We have moved a few more times and stayed together. Now we have sickness and injury. We live in a place we don’t like and doesn’t like us, and we are still together.

Lorin Duckman, 74 Years Old

Celebrating a birthday, especially one in the 7os, brings reflections on the past and projections about the future. The good news: my blood, medicated as it is, tests perfect. The bad news: my blood, medicated as it is, has rejected the Moderna Covid vaccine. So, a very happy day, followed by a depressing Doctor visit. Such is life.

I don’t have much of a voice anymore, my career and reputation having been wrecked in 1998. I try to do acts of kindness, everyday which is not always easy. You should too.

Dick Allen, Dead

Dick Allen deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. Baseball deserves to be in the hall of shame. How did Corona virus stop a virtual vote?
When I attended Penn, I saw him play many times. Gave the usher a dollar and he let me sit in a box on first base side. No one went to games. A few times I think he smiled over at me. I cheered when he hit, caught and just stood around fixing the dirt.

Valencia Reserve Closes Facilities

So, now we don’t even have a pool to swim in until everyone who came in contact with a covid positive neighbor are tested. One person stops residents of 1,000 homes from enjoying the amenities. Person remains anonymous, nameless. We don’t know male, female, republican, democrat.

No pickle ball, not that I play. The covid positive talked to someone who played so that got closed, too. Many here avoid masks anyway.

Tennis courts, clubhouse, everything, including bocce, shuffleboard and basketball. No problem getting a parking space, because no one is using any of the recreational, educational, creative or entertainment venues.

A chaise is available at appropriate social distancing, but the pool deck cannot be accessed. I’d say we were in hell; temp over 100 degrees, global warming caused and many here are Republicans. Good thing I don’t need medical care, because the hospitals are filled, their staffs overworked. Death rates climb. Don’t worry about us, Publix remains open. Total Wine delivers.

Alan Mark Ulick, Died Yesterday


My cousin, Alan Ulick, the son of my Father’s sister Gert died in his home yesterday. His marital partner of 25 or so years, Harry Small, was at his bedside. I think he was 83. Very Sad.

On the wall in my gallery hangs a picture of his Mother and my Father when they were kids. I had a second image and decided to look him up and give it to him, along with a picture of our Grandmother, Hannah Duckman, after whom my Brother, Henry Hannah, and his Daughter, Hannah are named. This image was made in 1921.

Other than a brief meeting, a few minutes or less, in 1954, when he was a teenager and I was a kid, we had never seen or spoken to one another. This past winter, Google found him living nearby in Hollywood FL.

I called. We spoke. Alan and Harry came to our home for lunch. I learned about him. He learned about me from the internet (no time to explain), plus I told him the little family history there is of the remaining Duckman family.

I gave him the pictures, an outdated family genealogical history done by cousins Jerry Winter and Herb Sumliner (in which he is named) and shot this image, along with a few others. We hugged and they left.

We agreed we would get together again, but his illness and treatments prevented it. I would have liked knowing him better.

 

 

 

Sharon Orders In

So, I got fucked for calling Nancy Mukasey Rothenberg, Princess Nancy. She was absent from court, often, planning her wedding, leaving her cases unprepared, I was told. It was a Jewish insult, according the Commissar Stern, a term abhorred by Jewish girls/women, though none I knew. Sharon never got her Prince, like Nancy did, she got me. What Sharon does well, like some Jewish women, is she orders in. And in this time of Corona, that is a skill devoutly to be wished. We are still married, despite Nancy’s efforts to cause otherwise. Is she?