Apart from having had my wife treat me as if I were a termite infestation, and apart from hearing milktoast ministers telling me that I'm only imagining all of the violence committed by Islamic fascists worldwide, I had a fine Christmas season. This included the satisfaction of assisting my ninety-year-old mother, Gail Ravitts, with HER writing. Nonfiction, in her case.
Until advancing age finally slowed her down physically, Mom was a tour guide and publicist for a museum of northern Illinois history. Located in my old hometown of Rockford, the place is called the Tinker Swiss Cottage. It was designed by a talented nineteenth-century gentleman called Robert Tinker, who achieved great things for the modernization of his city. He called his cottage "Swiss" for the logical reason: it was patterned after houses in Switzerland.
My mother has written a biography, titled Robert Tinker's World. My help to her consisted of a comprehensive final proofreading, picking out little details like whether a comma or a semicolon should be used in a given sentence. If this book ever turns up where you can get at it, I urge you to buy it, for it is a window to a bygone time. After some time interval for the book to emerge from the publisher, a web search for "Tinker Swiss Cottage" ought to yield some information on how to get the book.