Mountain Views News, Pasadena Edition [Sierra Madre] Saturday, March 9, 2019

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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

BUSINESS NEWS & TRENDS

Mountain Views-News Saturday, March 9, 2019 

Jeff’s Book Pics By Jeff Brown

FAMILY MATTERS By Marc Garlett


Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens 

#1 New York Times Bestseller. For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted 
Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when 
handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kay 
Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, 
she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding 
friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns 
to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by 
her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life--until the unthinkable happens. 
Perfect for fans of Barbara Kingsolver and Karen Russell, Where the Crawdads 
Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-
age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are 
forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent 
secrets that nature keeps.

Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, 
and a Collision of Lives in World War II by Adam Makos 

From the New York Times bestselling author of A Higher Call comes the riveting 
World War II story of an American tank gunner’s journey into the heart 
of the Third Reich, where he will meet destiny in an iconic armor duel—and 
forge an enduring bond with his enemy. When Clarence Smoyer is assigned to 
the gunner’s seat of his Sherman tank, his crewmates discover that the gentle 
giant from Pennsylvania has a hidden talent: He’s a natural-born shooter. At 
first, Clarence and his fellow crews in the legendary 3rd Armored Division—
“Spearhead”—thought their tanks were invincible. Then they met the German 
Panther, with a gun so murderous it could shoot through one Sherman and into 
the next. Soon a pattern emerged: The lead tank always gets hit. After Clarence 
sees his friends cut down breaching the West Wall and holding the line in the Battle of the Bulge, 
he and his crew are given a weapon with the power to avenge their fallen brothers: the Pershing, a 
state-of-the-art “super tank,” one of twenty in the European theater. But with it comes a harrowing 
new responsibility: Now they will spearhead every attack. That’s how Clarence, the corporal from 
coal country, finds himself leading the U.S. Army into its largest urban battle of the European war, 
the fight for Cologne, the “Fortress City” of Germany. Battling through the ruins, Clarence will engage 
the fearsome Panther in a duel immortalized by an army cameraman. And he will square off 
with Gustav Schaefer, a teenager behind the trigger in a Panzer IV tank, whose crew has been sent 
on a suicide mission to stop the Americans. As Clarence and Gustav trade fire down a long boulevard, 
they are taken by surprise by a tragic mistake of war. What happens next will haunt Clarence 
to the modern day, drawing him back to Cologne to do the unthinkable: to face his enemy, one last 
time.“The tension, death, and courage that were everyday experiences for American tankers fill the 
pages of Makos’s book. This moving story of bravery and comradeship is an important contribution 
to WWII history that will inform and fascinate both the general reader and the military historian.”—
Publishers Weekly/

Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the Wickedest 
Town in the American West by Tom Clavin 

Dodge City, Kansas, is a place of legend. The town that started as a small military 
site exploded with the coming of the railroad, cattle drives, eager miners, settlers, 
and various entrepreneurs passing through to populate the expanding West. Before 
long, Dodge City’s streets were lined with saloons and brothels and its populace 
was thick with gunmen, horse thieves, and desperadoes of every sort. By 
the 1870s, Dodge City was known as the most violent and turbulent town in the 
West.Enter Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson. Young and largely self-trained men, 
the lawmen led the effort that established frontier justice and the rule of law in 
the American West, and did it in the wickedest place in the United States. When 
they moved on, Wyatt to Tombstone and Bat to Colorado, a tamed Dodge was 
left in the hands of Jim Masterson. But before long Wyatt and Bat, each having 
had a lawman brother killed, returned to that threatened western Kansas town to team up to restore 
order again in what became known as the Dodge City War before riding off into the sunset.Tom 
Clavin's Dodge City tells the true story of their friendship, romances, gunfights, and adventures, 
along with the remarkable cast of characters they encountered along the way (including Wild Bill 
Hickock, Jesse James, Doc Holliday, Buffalo Bill Cody, John Wesley Hardin, Billy the Kid, and Theodore 
Roosevelt) that has gone largely untold, ;ost in the haze of Hollywood films and western fiction, 
until now.The 3 reviews are from Amazon.com

Upon death, if you have individual retirement 
accounts (IRAs), they will pass directly to the people 
you named on your beneficiary designation form. And 
unless you take extra steps, the named beneficiary can 
do whatever he or she wants with the account’s funds 
once you’re gone. 


For several reasons, you might not want your heirs to 
receive your retirement savings all at once. One way 
to prevent this is to designate your IRA into a trust. 
But you can’t just use any trust to hold an IRA; 
you’ll need to set up a special type of revocable 
trust specifically designed to act as the beneficiary 
of your IRA upon your death. Such a trust 
is referred to by different names but for this 
article, I’m simply going to call it an IRA Trust.
IRA Trusts offer a number of valuable benefits 
to both you and your beneficiaries. If you have 
significant assets invested through one or more IRA 
accounts, you might want to consider the following 
advantages of adding an IRA Trust to your estate plan.
1. Protection from creditors, lawsuits, & divorce 
Assets passed through an IRA Trust are shielded from 
your beneficiary’s creditors (which includes lawsuit 
judgements) if those assets remain in the trust. IRA 
Trusts are also useful in protecting assets from the 
possible remarriage and divorce of a surviving spouse 
as well as potential future divorces of your children. 


2. Protection from the beneficiary’s own bad decisions
In addition, an IRA Trust can also help protect 
the beneficiary from his or her own poor money-
management skills and spending habits. When you 
create an IRA Trust, you can restrict when the money is 
distributed as well as how it is to be spent. For example, 
you might stipulate that the beneficiary can only access 
the funds at a certain age or upon the completion of 
college. Or you might stipulate that the assets can only 
be used for healthcare needs or a home purchase. You 
can get as creative as you want with the trust’s terms.


3. Tax savings

One of the primary benefits of traditional IRAs is 
that they offer a period of tax-deferred growth, or 
tax-free growth in the case of a Roth IRA. A properly 
drafted IRA Trust can ensure the IRA funds are not 
all withdrawn at once and the required minimum 
distributions (RMDs) are stretched out over the 
beneficiary’s lifetime. Depending on the age of the 
beneficiary, this gives the IRA years—potentially 
even decades—of additional tax-deferred or tax-free 
growth. 

4. Minors

If you want to name a minor child as the beneficiary 
of your IRA, they can’t inherit the account until they 
reach the age of majority. So, without a trust, you’ll 
have to name a guardian or conservator to manage 
the IRA until the child comes of age. With an IRA 
Trust, however, you name a trustee to handle the 
IRA management until the child comes of age. At 
that point, the IRA Trust’s terms can stipulate how 
and when the funds are distributed. Or the terms 
can even ensure the funds are held for the lifetime of 
your beneficiary, to be invested by your beneficiary 
through the trust.

Find out if an IRA Trust is right for you

While IRA Trusts can have major benefits, they’re 
not the best option for everyone. We can look at your 
situation and goals to help you determine if an IRA 
Trust is the most suitable option for passing on your 
retirement savings to benefit your family.


,

A local attorney and father, Marc Garlett is on 
a mission to help parents protect what they 
love most. His office is located at 55 Auburn 
Avenue, Sierra Madre, CA 91024. Schedule an 
appointment to sit down and talk about ensuring 
a legacy of love and financial security for your 
family by calling 626.355.4000 or visit www.
GarlettLaw.com for more information.


COULD AN IRA TRUST 
BENEFIT YOUR FAMILY?


All Things By Jeff Brown

CHOCOLATE IS BETTER FOR YOUR COUGH THAN COUGH 
SYRUP, STUDY SAYS.

It may sound too good to be true, but researchers now say indulging in that piece of chocolate is actually 
the best cure for your cough.A research group from a university in England randomly prescribed 
more than 160 patients either regular cough medicine or a chocolate-based medicine.Patients on the 
chocolate-based medication reported improving more quickly than those on regular cough syrup.
Scientists believe the properties of cocoa help relieve irritation and inflammation.The authors of the 
study recommended sucking on a piece of chocolate to help relieve cough symptoms.The study may 
have been funded by an anonymous chocolate company!


Sierra Madre Playhouse Presents: TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE Starring Jackson Kendall and Larry Eisenberg

The autobiographical story of Mitch Albom, an accomplished journalist driven solely by his career, and Morrie Schwartz, his former college professor. Sixteen years after graduation, Mitch happens to catch 
Morrie's appearance on a television news program and learns that his old professor is dying. Mitch is reunited with Morrie, and what starts as a simple visit turns into a weekly pilgrimmage and a last class in 
the meaning of life.


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