By Jim Mullen

I don’t remember much about my childhood – only that my seven brothers and sisters and I were cruelly forced to do yard work from about 11 a.m. to noon every Saturday before we could wander off and do whatever we pleased without adult supervision for the rest of the weekend; that we were dragooned into drying dinner plates several nights a week in exchange for room and board; that we were required to wear cheap, unfashionable uniforms to expensive private schools; that we required to hang up our own clothes in our own closets under pain of shunning; that we were constantly threatened with the loss of life-sustaining evening meals if we didn’t make our beds or do our homework in a timely way. Oh, the humanity! How did I ever suffer through it for 26 long years? In short, it made Oliver Twist’s childhood seem light and fluffy.

Still, even under the harsh discipline, there were a few good times. Usually, once a summer my father would make ice cream. We never knew what got into him. As far as we children knew, he didn’t even like sweets. He was always eating things no one else, especially kids, would eat. Kipper snacks. Smelly cheese. Scrapple. I guess he figured no one would steal it.