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Norman L. Bender was born the oldest of four children to a World War II army veteran who served as a sergeant major and to a wonderful, gracious, kind bookkeeper at the plumbing supply company where he was to learn his lifetime trade. They met and hit it off. Good thing for Norman.

As a third grader living in West Haven, Connecticut, he was beaten up for a crime he did not commit and for which he had an alibi. The crime was that of killing Christ.

His mother had enough of that and the family moved to Westville in New Haven, where Norman went to grammar school, junior high, and high school. He also went to Yale in New Haven.

After serving in the US Army, he went into the business that his father had trained him for since age ten, which was the first time he’d been drafted. He had two marriages, from which he was blessed with three children, stepchildren, and a wonderful, unmatchable tribe of grandchildren.

In the summer of 1995, his sports hero, Mickey Mantle, whom he was fortunate enough to meet fourteen times, died. The Connecticut Post ran a series of one hundred articles about Mantle’s passing, and his was the lead letter, picture and all. Norman was hooked. This addiction has led to the publication of hundreds of his letters and essays in a dozen local and national newspapers.