Although it must have been 70 years or more ago, I remember it as if it was yesterday. Have you ever noticed that some memories, no matter how haunting and how much you’ve love to forget, seem never to fade or diminish in their power to turn you to tears. I can’t recall much about my father, but I do remember I was just about to turn eight years old when he left never to return.
It was a chilly, wet spring day, one of those days that hold promise for better weather, if not better days, to come. It had rained throughout the day, and as a result, the family had been held captive in the house. My brother Liam had spent much of the day working on his model sailboat. For months he had patiently been gluing the pieces together, a real chore for him since he’s about as patient as the dog next door when a squirrel crosses the yard. He was now hanging string so it looked like ropes coiled on the decks and rigging in the sails. It was obviously a painstaking process, and Liam had muttered a few curse words along the way. He was, however, pleased with himself, as I thought he should be. He had bought the model with the money he’d made from his and my other brother David’s newspaper route.
One day not long ago, mom had gotten sick of listening to the boys nag about not having this or that, so she’d given them both a good cuff behind the ear, nothing unusual there, and said,“If you damn boys want something, then by God, go out and work for it. I’ll be damned if everything you want is served up to ya like pork chop on a platter.” It was only at moments like those that she invoked the almighty, but there were times when she invoked him up one side and down the other.
As a result, every morning around 4, a bundle of newspapers landed alongside the curb in front of the house. The boys would hop out of bed (well mostly they’d grumble and poke each other out of bed), get dressed, wrestle the bundle to the back porch, and fold each one neatly. They had a way of doing it that kept them from having to purchase rubber bands. Purchasing rubber bands and the such was one way the newspaper tried to get money back from the boys. It was kind of like the old company town routine where the company gave you a job and home and then took everything back by charging you for overpriced food at the company grocery store and other services. Once the papers were folded and placed into these big, cloth bags with The Journal Review printed on the front, they’d sling them over their shoulders and head off to deliver them before anyone got out of bed. They had to get going early as neither of them had a bicycle and their paper route was a prime one on the hoity-toity side of town. Some of the kids at school accused my brothers of having strong armed their way into that route, but I don’t care. Lord knows my brothers needed the money, and everyone deserves a little something special in life. Besides, the boys were dedicated to their craft. They were like the mail carrier, neither rain nor sleet, or however it goes. The boys just didn’t miss a morning.
They had recently picked up an additional route nearer to our house when Randall Scott who had the paper route by the school, stole my shoe, wouldn’t give it back and made me cry. Unfortunately for Randall, my brothers came along and made him pay for his violation of their“beloved” sister (I really doubt they love me th
