I was born in a large mid-western city in late summer of 1940. It was a charity hospital in those days. My mother, a housewife, came from a large Irish family of six children. A staunch Democratic, Southern Baptist background. My dad, a painter, had one brother, an Irish mother and an English father and were Catholics. Mom was twenty when I was born. Two and a half years later my sister was born in California. We weren't in California long as my mother's- mother was killed in a car accident back home. We returned to the Midwest. My father was a good-looking man and according to our mom, impregnated a neighbor. They moved out of the state before we did. Somewhere I had a half-brother.

Like I mentioned before, mom came from a large family. Did I mention they were Shanty Irish? I don't think Grandma was. She married into it. Her death devastated my mom. I remember the smell of her father, my grandpa. He smelled like old age and cigar smoke. They were big drinkers, and the men were crude. The female children were called split-tails. A cousin of mine was impregnated by my grandfather or uncle, at her age of twelve or thirteen. We never knew which was the father. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

My grandfather on dad's side died young of a ruptured appendix. When we returned from California we lived in a small shack owned by my father's side of the family. It was without indoor plumbing, and other amenities like running water. Yes, it was located in the big city. One memory I have before we were put into the orphanage was looking out the one-bedroom window, I was probably between four and five then and sis was under three. I was anxiously watching for mom to return from the grocery store. It was a long distance away. Finally, I saw her walking down the hill with grocery bags in her arms. But she didn't turn into our path; she kept on walking past our home.

Many years later I asked her where she went. She told me she went around the bend to a friend's house and had a beer. I'm sure more than one. I suffer from a severe separation anxiety problem, and I wonder if that didn't start the trigger for it. Being put into the orphanage nailed it. Further life situations resulted in magnifying the consequences.