My first memory is watching my family's pig being slaughtered. I watched in fascination as the butcher's heavy mallet came down squarely on top of the tethered animal's head. Once confirmed dead, I helped spread straw on top and around the dead beast and lit the straw on fire. The pungent smell of hair and flesh burning filled the air. Once the flames expired, the butcher's skillful knife began separating the skin from the carcass, gutting the abdominal cavity and carving the rest in large sections, saving a quarter for himself. For the following two days, our family was busy dissecting, packing and making sausage from the carcass. The intestines made effective casings. The meat would easily last through the winter. It was 1948. I was 3.

We lived less than a kilometer from Lury-sur-Arnon, a town of about 600 in the Loire Valley farm country. Our small home sat on a hilltop overlooking the town and could be described generously as having three rooms of living space for the five of us. We did have a cellar where wine and canned preserves were stored and another barn-like storage area. A coal-burning stove dominated the living /kitchen area and I cannot possibly imagine it without my mother occupied at it, preparing meals. A room off the kitchen area held the beds where the family slept. We had no running water, electricity, TV, radio, telephone, or car. My parents did have bicycles. In other words, we had everything we needed.

I am the youngest of three boys, born the day after Christmas 1944. The German army was still occupying the area. From what my mother told me, I was one difficult child to keep alive. It was a severe winter and I was on the verge of death for the first eleven months of my life. Especially difficult was trying to get medical attention during the occupation. Trudging through knee-deep snow for hours while evading detection by the Germans was not easy for my mom. The underground resistance (Maquis) was active in our town and many villagers were shot in retaliation for their actions.

My parents met in France, but were born in Poland. My dad's parents emigrated to Chicago just prior to the First World War. They left him behind with his grandparents because they did not have enough money to take him at the time. The plan was to get established in the United States, save some money, and bring him along later. "The best-laid plans of mice and men..."

Dad began soldiering in his early teens. The Bolshevik Revolution began, then WWI and, by the end of that war, the family had enough money for his transport. However, he was also just old enough to be drafted by the Polish army. So, instead of using the money saved for transport, it was used to buy him out of the army. He decided to acquire a work visa to go to France as a coal miner to get out of Poland and its changing political environment. He would spend two years in the mines on a work permit.

When he finished his contract, he was either convinced or connived into signing up for the French Foreign Legion. My father was not a very talkative person and never expanded on the facts, but the family in Chicago believed he was shanghaied. Regardless of the reason, his next five years would be spent in Morocco.

The French Foreign Legion is known to be very, very tough. No French citizen can join it - that's why it's called what it's called. It is the last resort for a lot of different characters, many of which do not discuss their past. Legendary discipline methods are used to remove individual character flaws and build cohesive units. All members must learn to communicate in French and those that survive become French citizens after their tenure in the Legion. My dad became a member of a brotherhood that rivals any Special Forces unit now existing. He became a sergeant in his stint, which is unusual. Many of his stories about forays into the desert, hand-to-hand battles, Legionnaires getting their throats cut and the like left me wide-eyed. His relating how his pet monkey would not leave his shoulder when he returned from the desert delighted me to the core.

After he fulfilled his obligation, he returned to France and settled in the small town I was born. That is where he eventually met my mother and where my brothers and I were born.

My mother was attractive. She was born in Poland, like my dad. She had a very demanding mother who wanted her to marry a wealthy doctor to advance the family fortunes. However, Mom was already in love with someone else and got pregnant. This was a very shameful state of affairs in that day. She had the baby and her mother forced her to give it up for adoption. Whether she was expelled from the house or left on her own is another mystery, but she wound up in the same town where my father settled. I never saw a marriage certificate, but I suppose they married.

My dad's communication with his Chicago family started again after my folks met, but there seemed to be no hurry. Mom's daughter was taken from the adoptive family by her brother and he brought the baby to our town. My dad welcomed the baby, adopted her, and started his own family. My oldest brother, Rich, was born just prior to the Second World War.

My father went to war again but was captured and sent to a German prisoner of war camp. He escaped after a couple of months of internment and spent the remainder of the war with the underground resistance. Mike, my older brother, was born in 1942 after a couple of miscarriages by my mom, and I came along on December 26, 1944.

After the war, my mother had firmly made up her mind to bring her boys to the States. Communication with my dad's family restarted in earnest. My father traveled to Chicago in 1951 to see his family and, when he returned, started the process of emigration.

My youthful years were totally blissful. I didn't know why rules were made, but I certainly didn't see them applying to me. I did what I wanted when I wanted and was what is normally referred to as a pain-in-the-ass. I participated in some group activities, but would much rather explore the river, woods, and surrounding area by myself. I started school at three years old and was soon reading. My Christmas presents consisted of one or two new books and a sweater my mom had knitted. Socks were a bonus.

The town had a one-room schoolhouse with six rows of desks. When I moved from what would be considered "day care" into the schoolhouse, my brothers were already there. I was excited to be there with them. They were not. Whatever I was born with did not include restraint. I became accustomed to our teacher squeezing my cheeks and ears, the small hairs on my temples being twisted, and was even slapped occasionally. The teacher was an imposing figure of a man who brooked no shenanigans. I had to serve many early winter mornings starting the coal-fired potbelly stove that heated the room prior to the start of class. All the punishment had little, if any, effect on my jubilant way of living.

Mom tried to settle me down by giving me chores as soon as I was old enough. By age five, when I woke up in the morning, she would send me to the well to get water for coffee and breakfast. At first, winding the rope to bring the pail back up wasn't easy, but I got better at it. After delivering the bucket, I would then check the chicken coops for eggs and bring them to the kitchen. Then, the rabbit hutches would be checked for availability of food. After coffee and bread, I would take 25 francs for the evening bread and head off to school.

When I left school, I headed for the bakery. Many times, after I had experienced the aroma of the bakery and headed home with the loaf, I couldn't help but dig out the warm dough and would wind up at home with an empty crust. After my beating, I would be sent back to get a new loaf.

Beatings were administered by my mother with a cat-o-nine-tails. They were painful. One of these episodes was particularly memorable.

One winter was severe enough to freeze the surface of the river at the base of the hill. I was fascinated by the ice spanning from bank to bank because I had never seen that before. I ventured onto the ice gingerly and it held solid near the bank. Gathering courage, I eased forward with the intent of reaching the opposing bank. Near the middle, cracking sounds made me stop. Looking down, I saw leaves passing under the surface of the ice. I decided to ease back to my starting point. What I hadn't noticed was the parish priest looking down at me from the hilltop. When my mother got home from work, she administered the absolute best pain I ever felt. So, I did the only thing I could do - I tossed the cat-o-nine-tails into the outhouse. She had to resort to my father's belt for future beatings.

Aside from the beatings, life was a joy. Today, I think Mom must have loved me very much to exert so much power in trying to save my life. I guess what I put her through my first eleven months made her even more determined to save me later. There's no question I sometimes feel as though I'm on borrowed time.

One of the chores I did not really care for was fetching my father from the town bar to bring him home for dinner. He took a train daily to his job in a porcelain factory in Vierzon. Other men from our town also worked there and ride the train together. They would gather at the Hotel du Boeuf after work for some wine. Some time prior to dinner being ready, my mom would dispatch me to bring him home. If he had too many snorts, I readied myself to play peacekeeper when we returned.

He had visited his Chicago family in 1951 and considered the move for the family. I think he really enjoyed his life where he was. Until he left in August 1954 to get a job and apartment for us, there were many arguments. He even tossed the emigration papers in the stove fire during one of them. My mom had to reach into the flames to retrieve them. She persisted in her efforts to give her kids a better life.

I loved and respected my dad. My mom too. The townspeople also thought highly of my dad. His Legion training had been demonstrated not long after he had met my mom. Although he was not very tall, he was very strong and sinewy. A fireplug of a frame. Prior to our birth, Mom had waited for him at the bar and was being harassed by four locals. When my dad arrived and saw the goings-on, he went ballistic and, in short order, sent all four crashing outside the bar. Legionnaire training is brutal. No one ever challenged him again.

My joy came from the wonderful environment of country living. Spring was fantastic - blossoms all over the place, farmers plowing their fields while trailing their Percheron horses, our cherry trees in bloom, planting our garden, etc. My curiosity took me everywhere. Because we had no toys or money, we had to be creative to amuse ourselves. Spring and summer were all about creative joy.

Summertime was best. We would go fishing in the river, participate in endless cop-and-robber games with the town kids, play soccer, etc. The fruit trees around our house were constantly under siege for their prized product. Cherries, pears, apples, plums and garden produce went directly from Mother Earth to our bellies. I never saw any food in a box or can until we reached Chicago. I spent many nights reclined on the hillside, looking at a sky filled with stars. One memorable starry night in 1950 made me wonder: "It's the middle of the century; I wonder where I'll be at the end of it?" I was five years old.

Harvest time was also joyful. The entire town would participate with the farmers in bringing the crops in. We had two small vineyards my dad harvested to make wine for the year. Neighbors would help him and we would help neighbors until all the work was done. Three days of festivities would end the Fall harvest.

I loved school and was good enough to catch up to my older brother. I was still prideful then, so it made me happy. The six rows in the schoolhouse each had a blackboard directly in front of the desks, where the assignments would be written. I soon realized that, if I finished my row's work, I could start working on the next row's assignment. By the time I was ten, I was in the same row as Mike and we were ready to join our oldest brother Rich the following year. It wasn't to be. The emigration papers were ready. It was 1955. I was 10. Next stop - Chicago.