xxiAcknowledgments
Lots of folks deserve lots of credit for helping to midwife this
book from its early days of conception and along the winding and
torturous road to its actually being published. Foremost among
them is my long-suffering lady love, Sachi Braden. Sachi and I are
typical of many of the couples described in this book. We were
both previously married, then divorced; we jointly reared her
son/my stepson, and we lived together for several years before
we both got over our own phobias about remarriage. Sachi finally
became my beloved bride about midway through the process of
finalizing the first edition of this book. She has allowed as how I
was something less than a joy to live with during the months, and
ultimately years, that I wound up working on this manuscript.
A lot of appreciation is also due my hard-working staff at both
the old law offices of Bradley A. Coates and its successor firm,
Coates & Frey. These folks kept the doors of the law office open
and the cases moving through while the boss spent many after-
noons in seclusion “composing.” Foremost among these are the
seven associate attorneys who work in the Coates & Frey law firm
that I founded and who have been with me for many moons: Paul
W. Soenksen, Jessi L. K. Hall, Karl E. Phillips, Richard E. Dunn, Jr.,
R. Barrie Michelsen, Christopher D. Thomas and John D. Hughes.
I now serve as “Of Counsel” to the Law Offices of Coates & Frey
and I am the first to admit that many of the attorneys on our staff
are far brighter in any number of areas than am I as the “old dog”
who started our firm. In addition, I don’t think there is a single
member of my firm’s clerical or administrative staff who didn’t
wind up putting several hours in various stages of typing, proof-
ing, editing or “polishing” this manuscript. My special thanks go
to my unwaveringly supportive alter ego in the Coates & Frey