Cold Cherry Soup, Library Policies and Filial Responsibility Laws—Paying for Care for Your Parents

This blog will be a mixture of things that I like and that interest me: a little food; a little culture/history; some local stuff; some legal notes.

Food:

We just had the first heat wave of the summer and I am thinking about cool soups. Both of my parents were born in Budapest, Hungary so a favorite has always been Cherry Soup. While not authentic, here is a quick and easy recipe.   It is sweet even though the cherries are sour. You can get the sour cherries in a jar at Trader Joe’s in the other Heights: Brooklyn Heights.

For a 4-6 person serving:

I lb/1oz of pitted dark cherries (1 jar from Trader Joe’s)-
don’t drain.

1 cup of sour cream

¼ cup of superfine sugar

¼ cup tawny port or cream sherry

Pour cherry liquid into a medium to large mixing bowl, add sour cream, sugar, port/sherry and stir until well blended. Add cherries, cover and chill for 3-4 hours.

Culture:

I love to read as did my Dad. The Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Branch is one of my favorite places in Brooklyn. Major Owens the former Congressional representative for our area was a librarian before he entered politics. The Brooklyn Public Library for years collected books which they would add to its shelves. I believe this changed fairly recently. They will now onlyaccept books for resale. They now buy books from a company(ies) that will catalog the books for them. I am told this saves money and in some cases it might. I don’t know how much time and expense there is in cataloging and I asked the BPL. I have yet to receive a response, but I suspect they have staff limitations. What surprises me is that there is no discretion afforded staff in accepting books, particularly when the BPL is seeking funds and contributions to stock its shelves.

I tried to give the Central Library beautiful, mint condition books that my Dad owned, but they reluctantly did not have the authority to take them. I gave them to Housing Works. The public school I went to were also very selective because of alignment with curricula. This is logical, although the school had virtually no books.

The NYPL is in the midst of a controversy as it is restructuring its Mid-Manhattan system, partially because the role of libraries in our culture is changing. The physical space needed for print books is will be unnecessary for electronically accessible reading. Will our libraries become extensions of our public schools?

What is the mission for Brooklyn libraries in the future? What would you like to see at the Central Branch?

A few trivia points related to Major Owens. One of his sons played Elvin on the Bill Cosby Show. His other son Chris, as been politically active in this area. Major Owens replaced Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, who apart from being the first major party black candidate for President of the United States, was assigned to the House Agriculture Committee when she was first elected. There was a joke that Brooklyn had the best represented trees in the country. She survived a number of assassination attempts during her Presidential campaign.

Legal Notes:

Some states have filial responsibility laws that make can make children responsible for the support of their parents. There was a recent
case in Pennsylvania where a son had to pay $90,000 to a nursing home.

New York does not have such a law and has case law which precludes it. This is not the case with every state so if you have parents living in another state that may need support due to age or health it is important to know the statutory and case law of that state, as well as Medicaid and Medicare rules. For instance, Connecticut makes it a crime for refusing reasonable necessary support to a parent under 65.

Disclaimer: Legal Notes are not legal advice nor legal opinion. Please do not just rely on these notes without specific legal advice.