Ex-CTLawyer

I’ll take the bull by the horns and be blunt>>>>
What have you got to offer a prospective wife?
It does not sound like you are prepared to support a wife and children, equip/furnish a home and your OTD family is not a candidate to underwrite your expenses.

If a prospective in-law is to be asked/expected to subsidize his daughter and son-in-law, he may not be interested in a bochur with no money and no yichus with OTD friends and family.

Mrs. CTL and I let our daughters know that we’d not be supporting sons-in-law who sat and learned while our daughters were expected to work to pay the bills. We come from the learn, then marry and earn school of thought.

It is time for a reality check, bochur. You can’t change who your family is, but you can change your friends. You may also have to change your yeshiva and associate with a new group of people.

@UncleMo
I guess I am the exception to the current rule.

I don’t support sons-in-law and none of my sons were supported by their in-laws. But all of them have driven hand me down cars from Mrs. CTL and myself.

We have 2 grandsons currently learning in Yeshiva (in Brooklyn) before they go to college and professional school I”H. They are cousins, not brothers but share a car that is more than 20 years old, it belonged to my father Z”L and they are glad to have it and not be stuck using public transit. Coming from money doesn’t mean one has to be spoiled.

@DovidBT
A little uncalled for Hillary Bashing?
She din’t ride to the polls on a horse, Moore did?
She graciously offered a concession speech to Mr. Trump. Moore has refused to concede.
She didn’t file a lawsuit to overturn the election, Moore did and LOST.

Want to bash Hillary? Start your own thread….no reason to trash her on this thread

Moore is officially the loser!!!!
Time for him to get back on the horse he rode in on and get out of Dodge. Let him ride off into the sunset and never be heard or seen again.

NO…trump (no capital T as the OP wrote) did NOT win. The election was in 2016.

@Syaglchochma
My comment about the increase in the personal exemptions being meaningless to me as we have no dependents was in reaction to a post on the parallel thread to this where it was stated a typical frum family with 8 children would do better with the increased personal exemptions than they did itemizing.

I live in a mature community. It grew as a suburb during the white flight of the late 1960s and early 70s. Very few frum families are left with children of the age who are still dependents on parents’ tax returns. Our last married in August and 2017 will be the final return where we and the in-laws can claim the children on our returns.
The talk at shul this Shabbos kiddush was how many of us will make our Florida homes our main abode. Establish homestead status to lower property tax in Fla, be guaranteed no state income tax under the FL Constitution, sell our CT homes and just come north for a month for the Yomin Noraim (as my parents did for 25 years.

I’ve been looking at the local zoning and tax codes and I could turn our compound into 5 unit condominium development with amenities with each unit sold having a property tax under 8K. It is a serious consideration.

@Yehudayona
I posted that a picture ID was required to open a bank account in CT. If you are opening an account with an on-line bank based elsewhere you are NOT opening it in CT, it doesn’t matter of you live in CT, you sign an agreement that the bank regulations of the bank’s state apply.

The last on-line bank account I opened required that I send an image of my CT driver’s license

This year there was a tie vote in the Democratic Primary for City Council in the 133rd District in Bridgeport, Connecticut’s largest city. This is in the North End, the last area of Bridgeport with a Jewish presence
Winning the primary is tantamount to winning the general election.
The following morning it was announced that an uncounted absentee ballot was found and the incumbent was declared the winner by one vote.
This was taken to court and the one absentee ballot that miraculously appeared ruled invalid.
A new election was ordered.
Second time around, absentee ballots that arrived without postmarks, delivered by a policeman were challenged in court. The second election was thrown out.
The new City Council was sworn into office and began work the first wee of December, but the 133rd faces a February primary for representation. The judge ordered a third election.

Had one more citizen voted in person at the polls in September, there would have been a winner. Primary turnout was only about 10%.

@Health
Be careful who you call a liar and accuse of dishonesty.
You owe me a PUBLIC apology.
Not one word about former Governor Weicker in my post is untrue. He left the Republican Party and ran on the “A Connecticut Party’ line. He was not a registered Democrat.

The northeast has a tradition of Liberal Republicans…it was not always CONSERVATIVE PARTY.

@Health
Property Tax is a function of local government, NOT State.
I’ve owned my home for 28 years. The taxes have doubled in the past 8 years under a Republican Town Government: First Selectman, Town Council and Board of Finance.
The Sate Income Tax was instituted by a NON-Democrat Governor (former Republican elected on a 3rd Party line) Lowell Weicker and the rates raises repeatedly under 12 years of Republican Governors, the Convict John Rowland and his sidekick Mary Jodi Rell.

As I have repeatedly stated, I am socially Liberal BUT FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE. I served on our Town Council for 6 years and opposed most budget increases and tax increases. I favored spending smarter, not spending more.

I do not believe that commuting the sentence of a convicted felon makes Trump an Oheiv Yisroel par excellence.
It is simply a politically savy move and payback for block voting.

Watch how Yidden will suffer economically under the new Trump tax laws.

How many CR readers i the northeast pay more than 10K per year in real estate taxes, how many pay state and local income tax….deductions gone

I’ve been digesting the final bill as passed and expect my Federal taxes to rise more than $20.000 per year. That’s 20K less funds available for Tzedaka.
Never mind his emasculating of the ACA and going after entitlement programs.

the sheep in Black garb have been fleeced by this Charlatan and will soon see they will be freezing and hungry

@Joseph
Not one word of my posts in this thread ever mentioned parties. There were/are conservatives and liberals in both major parties. The Henry Wallace Dixiecrats of the deep south were conservative at the same time as the liberal Dems of the northeast were fighting for equal rights for all.
The Nelson Rockefeller wing of the Republican party was liberal at the same time the Barry Goldwater faction was conservative.
It is not true that the Republican Party never hurt Jews. Here in CT, Jews were kept from buying homes in Republican run suburbs from Greenwich to Northford until the 1970s.

WE use unscented dryer sheets for two purposes.

They make towels less stiff, so they are used in towel only loads.

We have 4 dogs and a cat. Sometimes clothing picks up animal hair while hanging in our dressing room. We toss the clothing item in the dryer on a no heat setting with a dryer sheet for 10 minutes and it will remove the animal hair. This works much better than a lint roller

@Joseph
I have always advocated living within one’s means, I posted the advice I gave my sons, not to other people’s sons.

@MTAB
I started working in my father’s store after school at the age of 8. My elder sons also working in grandpa’s stores. The younger sons worked in my office as did my daughters. They earned their dating money (yes, I owned the cars they drove, but they paid the gas and tolls).
I don’t consider the cost of a good meal as throwing money away.

I made sure my children were educated to earn a good living, as did my parents and grandparents for their children. Tuition is a struggle.
I have many of the finer things in life, but I earned them. I don’t throw money away. We vacation in our own home and have the entire family here for Yuntif. The amenities such as the pool, etc are well used and cheaper in the long run than vacations, hotels, sleep a way camp, etc.
My two youngest daughters were married here in the compound. Caterer, yes, large catering hall bills, no.

.I cut my own grass and in my mid 60s shovel my own snow (or use the snow blower if need be).
We don’t ‘buy’ Shabbos or other meals as takeout. We cook from scratch.

We have 17 rooms in the main house and a cleaning lady once a week to do floors and bathrooms and kitchens. We all clean up after ourselves, and do our own laundry. My shirts don’t get sent out, they get ironed at home.

It’s all about choices.
When I want to hire a new junior attorney, at least one interview takes place in a restaurant. I want to see how they handle themselves in that type of a situation and observe their table manners. Dates are also interviews, and the same reasons to dine out apply.

@Lightbrite
It is always a pleasure to answer your serious inquiries. Death and burial is not a topic all are comfortable discussing.

There is much information that can be gleaned when visiting a family cemetery. I always wondered why my father OBM never observed the Fast of the Firstborn Erev Pesach. Afterall, he was the oldest sibling in his family and a male. His parents were married in 1919. In searching the extremes of the family cemetery a few years ago, I came across a small marker which was inscribed ‘Baby Family name July 12, 1920’. It was along the far fence hidden among weeds and brush. I asked his last surviving aunt about this (she was 104 at the time) and she told me that my grandparents had had a child (who lived only a few hours) the year before my father was born. They never discussed this with my father. My grandfather told my father that he was not required to fast. Dad assumed his mother had had a miscarriage prior to dad’s birth.

We have a family association that owns and runs the cemetery and keeps out genealogical records going back to 1823. Last year we went through the cemetery in Queens and the newer one in Suffolk County and made a list of names of those whose line had died out. When my eldest son’s youngest child was born he chose to name the boy for a first cousin of my grandmother who never had children and was not named for.

@MTAB

I told my sons to always take the girl to a fine restaurant on a first date. If the girl turns out to be of little interest and potential, at least you had a great meal.

@Yehidayona……………………….

kohl may be cabbage to you, but Mrs. CTL and daughters have shown me over the years that ‘kohl’ is eye makeup. Mrs’ CTL uses a ‘kohl’ eye pencil.

I’ve never seen one at Kohl’s, but the better cosmetic counters at Macy’s (such as Chanel) do have it.

I’m old fashioned, I still have a checkwriting machine on my desk at home and one one in the office. Every check is processed through the machine which embosses the amount by perforating the check and inking in red and blue. It can not be altered by hand.

My children used to love helping me pay bills when they were little. Inserting the check, pushing the buttons down in each column for the amount and pulling the handle down to cut the check.

@Joseph
Husband was on board from Florida and through the Panama Canal then flew home. In s month he’ll fly to southern Argentina and the ship’s jet helicopter will bring him aboard for another ten days. After six more weeks he’ Fly out again for a week and both will fly Home.
Daughter is training a replacement for long voyages. From now on she’ll only do upto 10 days from Florida in the winter or her home in southern France in the summer.
Once the kids start all day school she will give up almost all travel except when entire family can be on the ship.

@Neville

@Joseph

There are 8 countries who have designated their Missions to the United Nations in NYC to also serve as their Embassy to the USA.

This is not an unusual situation, as some countries will designate an Ambassador to serve as representative to more than one country. Israel, for example maintains only 69 embassies while having diplomatic recognition from more than 150 countries. In Latin America and the Caribbean the Israeli Ambassador may serve multiple countries from one embassy and have use of a consular or other office when visiting them

Joseph.
Yes I had pen-pals as a child. In third grade we were assigned pen-pals in Jewish communities around the world. Each year through 6th grade an additional pen-pal was added to our list. We were expected to write a monthly letter to each pen-pal, so by 6th grade that worked out to a letter per week. My mother would take me to the post office to purchase Aerogrammes on which to write.
I had pen-pals in Israel, South Africa, Canada(Montreal) and Uruguay. I continued correspondence on a regular basis through my Junior High years.
In the summer of 1962 I met my Israeli pen-pal during a family trip to EY. We have remained friends for 55 years and have shared family simchas. Our grandaughters went to summer camp together 2 years ago.
I met my pen-pal from Montreal in Miami Beach in the 1970s when we were both vacationing there. He left Montreal during the anti-English blitz of the early 80s and I lost track of him.
I was in South Africa for much of the late 1970s and met my former pen-pal and his extended family. My newest son-in-law is a cousin’s child.
The pen-pal in Uruguay was the shortest duration, ending in 7th grade. I never met him and have no idea where he ended up. While visiting Uruguay I was unable to trace the family.

My eldest children had pen-pals, my youngest were of the email generation and not interested. My grandchildren seldom pick up a pen except for in school or obligatory handwritten thank you notes. They have no interest in pen-pals.

When we broke up my parents’ CT home we found shoe boxes full of aerogrammes saved from our assorted pen-pals. One long summer Shabbos afternoon I enjoyed reliving my letters.

I leave it in the car and walk into shul wearing just my yarmulke

@Lightbrite
Joseph and family were here for the big :Labor Day blowout and fireworks at the CTL compound. His daughter was having such a good time in the country she wanted to stay for a few extra days. Mrs. CTL is a sucker for little girls…are are all married by now and we have loads of empty bedrooms.

Joseph said he’d get her after Sukkos, just not which year…………………
This little sweetheart is having a great time. She says she never had a room and bathroom of her own before. Mrs. CTL drives her to and from school, She enjoys our pets, loves the food and frankly is a great addition to the household. At some point I think Joseph’s wife might notice one of the many kinderlach is missing

Some shuls have ritual committees who set rules (in consultation or subject to review by the Rav). Our shul set rules that deal with this more than 20 years ago and when we interview new candidates for the position of Rav they are provided with them.

Membership (meaning PAID up to date) has its privilege. If there are 2 men wishing to daven for the amud in the same need to say kaddish standard, the fully paid up member gets the honor. He may choose to relinquish it to a guest, but is not required to do so.

It costs money to pay utilities, insurance, salaries, etc. That doesn’t come from the money a guest might stick in the pushke, it comes from dues and annual pledges.

I know when my father’s Yahrzeit is, when I show up and there is no one in shiva or shloshim, I expect that I or my brothers will daven for the amud. There is no other male member of our shul with the same yahrzeit. My father’s memorial placque will be lit and one of us will be at the amud. Generally, my eldest brother davens Maariv and I davem Shacharis. We provide a breakfast after minyan. We leave Mincha for any member who may be in the mourning year, or a guest if there is one in need. Otherwise, we let a remaining brother daven.