Kith & Kin

Dear Loyal Readers of Kith & Kin, As you know, we here at Kith & Kin Worldwide Publications Ltd., Inc., LLP, constantly and unflaggingly search for and reveal the truth, regardless of what intimidation tactics may come our way. Our large, loyal, underpaid staff has been assiduously (yes, assiduously ) combing through the 80,000 pages of documents on the JFK assassination that were recently released by the Trump administration. As we all know now, mainstream journalists found in the materials absolutely no evidence of a conspiracy, of a second shooter, or even of Oliver Stone. Disappointment among conspiracy-theory adherents (you may count us among that number!) rapidly turned to rage—true, in the past, the lack of any credible evidence was the best proof of a conspiracy and cover-up! But we had nonetheless hoped to find some crumb, some scrap, some nugget of proof of our predetermined conclusions somewhere within all those pages. Well! Apparently the mainstream media r...

My younger brother,* Eric, has always had a fascination with audio and video technology. I remember, when he was an RTV major in college, I played piano for a brief radio program he had put together for a class project. It had to contain certain elements, one of which was a musical number. He knew a college guy who played the accordion, and the guy agreed to play for the program. Eric made sure we all knew that this was to be done like live radio, so timings had to be perfect. And we would do it only once while his teacher, in the booth with him, looked on severely—just to screw the stress up one more little notch. (Come to think of it, most teachers looked severe back in the 1980s.) Then Eric gave us directions, and his speech went something like this: One of the first things to ensure a good performance is strict attention to the director. I’ll keep my directions simple…. If I make a slashing motion across my throat, it means “cut the scene short.” If I make a revolving motion wi...

“Steven, would you please go downstairs and get the clinics box for me?” The request came from aged Mrs. White, a tiny white-haired Southern belle. Cindy and I, early in our marriage, were working for her in exchange for free rent in the apartment above her garage. As the lazy afternoon Southern sun drifted through the gauzy windows, illuminating dust motes floating in the air, Cindy and I were vacuuming the floors and wiping down her antiques—in a futile effort to conquer those same motes when they came to rest. Mrs. White was an easy person to work for. She wasn’t demanding or demeaning or unreasonable. Her wants were generally few. “Steven, would you please go downstairs and get the clinics box for me?” “Sure, Mrs. White. What kind of box did you say?” “Clinics. A clinics box.” She seemed a bit frustrated, which was unusual for her, so I didn’t press it any further. Clearly a clinics box must be some kind of first-aid kit, filled with items you might find at doctors’ ...

Baby Keith. Mom ’ s idea of putting the baby ’ s age right in the photo was a stroke of genius. My mother often told me the story of the day she and Dad brought Keith home from the hospital. They laid him on the couch, and I, two-and-a-half years old, looked at him and said, “Where’s his mommy?” At some point thereafter I comprehended the fact that my mommy and daddy were also Keith’s mommy and daddy, and that meant we were brothers. When we were still quite young, Keith and I had our own TV program. It was broadcast every evening immediately after supper. The two of us would go into the living room, stand in front of a large mirror, and put on a comedy show. Its high-brow humor consisted mostly of two little boys dancing around and acting silly, the larger one repeatedly hitting the smaller one on the head and pushing him off camera because he had made a comment that was, in the estimation of the larger one, stupid—while the smaller one gamely played along, always smiling, willingly...

On Saturdays male college students left campus in abundance. Some went to the mall. Some went home. And some of us who needed cash went to work for the good folks in the local community. It was on one such Saturday that I found myself at Mrs. White’s, along with a fellow college student named Phil. We rode there in Phil’s rattle-trap car, parked, got out, slammed the doors, and walked to the front door of a rambling white house with dark blue shutters. Wisteria grew profusely on a trellis to the left of the door, draping it in purple, and a hulking magnolia tree grew on the right, fully in bloom and fragrant. Phil knocked, and when the door opened, a tiny former Southern Belle with completely white hair welcomed us. It was Mrs. White. She must have at least been in her seventies, and you could tell she had always been happy and honest of soul, two traits that had given her a grandmotherly glow from within. We stepped just inside the door, and she introduced us to her son, Plato (yes, “...