Memories From Ninety Years

Three children born early in 1914-1918 are given 3 lights, 1 red, 1 white, 1 blue. They are playmates living in 3 adjacent houses. It is not till later that they realise that these lights signify VICTORY at the end of the 1st World War, a war to end all wars it was said. Now read the memories from the 95-year life of the holder of the red light & her sister, & about their family - many of whom had struggled with little or no state help in their lives.

Memory That Claws is a beautifully written little book of "Transformational Memories" that refuse to depart, but continue to "Claw" at us, at the essence of who we really are - and live forever with us to challenge our most sensitive actions and profound decisions in our lives ahead. These may not be our most precious Memories, testaments to our love, our soulmates, our hopes and dreams, or those that foreshadow our great losses and deaths. It is a tough book, the vision of our so-called "Doppelganger"-that aroused observer or "umpire" who calls them out for us as authorities profound but troubled arbiter-the "I" who once lived beneath this stone.The author, Peter Simon Karp ["Time Chords," "Logjam of a Beauteous Mind"], reaching the age of 90 has selected nine "Memories That Claw" from his book of Archives. Being a young Jewish boy in America told tales of the Old Country Russia and the Kishinev pogroms by his remarkable Bubby Sarah.Oceans weren't enough to protect a Jewish boy from Fascism, or the wild-eyed German-American Bundsmen who Camped up the road, smashed in their mailbox and the top of their front door to break in, until he was chased away by his Pacifist Grandpa Henry - "The Old Jew Farmer's Got a Gun !"Or his kid's War Game against Nazi youth, turn into the tragic drowning of Raymond, when 10-year-olds broke into a lake closed for the War.Remember, the 1st half of his 90 years being a Jewish boy growing up in America were Memories driven by WWII: Hitler's attempt to create a thousand year Third Reich.Memory That Claws is both tough and loving - "I" who lived beneath my stone!