CARRY ON IN LAUGHTER

Eileen weaves 18 non-fiction and fictional stories that bring generations together in friendship, fun, love and sometimes sadness. There is the pain of a parents early death, a caring relationship between a nurse and a young hospital patient and then fun and games on a Manhattan street. She creates a montage of fictional stories showing love lost, an advertising executive longing for another life, a distraught homeless woman begging on the streets, a compulsive gambler struggling with his addiction and two childhood sweethearts reunited under dire circumstances. Magical times are described on the lure of New York City streets during the summers of the 1940s and 50s. The kids created their games without parental supervision. They would melt crayons inside bottle caps for street checkers. Thrown out broom sticks became stickball bats. Cell phones were not even invented then. For 11-year olds caring for a pet mouse in a hidden place in a basement taught them love and responsibility. Archie Comics was the teens social commentator. The kids would sit on the stoop in a group reading and commenting on the characters. Then there were glorious beach days, a transition to high school and a take-off on a pair of teddy bears and then life in the duck world. Working as a reporter, Eileen was interviewing a Trash to Energy Manager when a kitten lunged onto his chest. It accidentally came in on a dumpster truck that was hauling garbage to the center. Dumpster, the kitten went from rags to riches into his new life. The exotic Cyprus trip was memorable, and a Cancun trip created uncertainty, but a Mexican gentleman changed that._,