CHAPTER 1
THE CORNER HOUSE
Mom hated men. It was no wonder that she broke down in tears the moment she gave birth to one of those dreadful boys. The odds were certainly against her - I had to arrive sometime after my one, two, three, four, five, six sisters. She cried for two days. It was May 1935. Mom was twenty-nine.
The third day my mom settled down. "Maybe - just maybe," she thought, "this boy would be an exception, a good boy, not like his father, not like my father." She began to love me like one of the girls. Lucky for me, she recognized the difference and never dressed me pretty or in hand-me-downs.
Mom never had a lot of good things to say about my dad other than the fact that he could sell snowballs to Eskimos. I did hear better things about my dad from my siblings when I grew up. Never the less, dad still sold mom on having just one more child after I was born. My little sister appeared eighteen months behind me. Then, unfortunately, dad died from a kidney ailment in 1938.
After moving from one household to another fourteen times during the marriage, the young widow gathered her eight eggs in a basket and promised us that the roof over our heads would be first priority, food and clothing to follow, and only an act of Congress could get us to move. Congress came into session two times in the next fifteen years.
Flour dust filled the kitchen air every weekend after dad passed away. Mom pushed, pounded and rolled bread dough on an old faded red and white-checkered tablecloth that draped over a long picnic breakfast table. No chairs were in sight; we could all sit comfortably on two long benches that ran the length of the table.
A cigar box with broken crayons, some scraps of paper, or maybe a coloring book we got from Sunday school with pictures of Jesus, a lamb, a parting sea or some other miracle that could be colored was enough to occupy my little sister and I in the kitchen on a cold wintry day. We could just sit forever at the end of the table and just bake like mamma’s bread, and maybe - just maybe - and with out even asking - we might get some hot chocolate when the milkman came.
Eventually we heard the clinking of glass milk bottles coming down the walkway along side of the house. Even though the milkman was wearing a heavy jacket when he came to the back door you could still see his starched white uniform as he waved a "Hello!" through the door window and exchanged the empty milk bottles. Mom brought the milk in immediately and shook one quart vigorously to mix the thick cream that covered the top two inches.
Two slices of warm bread covered with oleomargarine slid down the table towards us. A small yellow pot with chunks of enamel missing from thirty years of use and abuse sat on the stove warming our milk. The flame was always at a perfect low. Mom was always concerned about bringing the milk to a boil and developing that ghastly layer of skin along the top.
After mom punched two holes in a new can of Hershey syrup with a beer can opener, we soon had our hands cupped around our favorite Hoppalong Cassidy cup sniffing hot chocolate. At that point we could concentrate diligently on the large marshmallow bobbing up and down in the steaming cocoa. It was a challenge to catch the thick white blob of cream with our spoon at the exact moment it became the size of a pea. One moment longer the marshmallow would have disappeared completely and become a part of the drink itself. There was no doubt that we were engaged in a childÕs winter heaven.
CHAPTER 2
THE SHOOTER
Some of my older sisters - - - -
