The early years

It was a second marriage for both of my parents. My mom brought five children into the marriage, my dad brought in four, so as a newly wed couple back in the early seventies, they started out with nine children and then had six together. So, I was lucky number thirteen out of fifteen. Confused yet? It took me a very long time to keep it all straight.

I don't have great memories of my childhood. We never went camping on the weekends, to the zoo, the beach or any place for that matter. My dad was in world war 2, I don't know much else about that because it was never discussed in my house. He was a brick mason and built beautiful houses down in the south. My mom mostly stayed home but sometimes got odd jobs here and there cleaning people's houses. Both of my parents were party animals, they bar hopped every weekend and we were left to fend for our selves. Basically the older children took care of the younger ones. We would share one pack of hot dogs and one can of beans between all of us. The hot dogs would be cut up and mixed into a can of beans and that would be dinner. We never had a real meal. Once in a while on pay day before they hit the bars, they would treat us to a hamburger or chicken, but mostly we ate beans. There was never milk or bread in our house, well honestly we never had anything in the house to eat. I remember one night going into the kitchen for a drink of water and one of my brothers was standing in the kitchen eating mustard straight out of the jar, because he was so hungry.

Later on in life, I remember my brothers would go and rob the hostess dumpsters and bring us home cakes and snacks to eat. They would also rob refrigerated trucks and would get us sandwhich meat and jellos. I know that stealing is not right but those were some good days when they would come in with some food.