I once heard on television that humans possess super powers if only they would practice using them. I have discovered that I am possessed with a supreme power that enables me to retrogress in time and interview my parents as they disembark from their respective ships at Ellis Island in New York Harbor.

92-year-old Ed Kurtz is equally fond of a good story and a bad pun.

From ice tongs to road rage, from the house where the Pope slept to the fall of the Twin Towers, Ed tells the tale of three centuries: His parents' arrival from Hungary in the late 1800s, family life in '20s and '30s America, the Europe of World War II, and a modern world full of perils.

Ed Kurtz lives in Passaic, New Jersey, with his cat Flash.