Down on Second Street

Never a Dull Moment

This a true story from the perspective of "a middle child" during the 1950s. The setting was the east side of Dayton, Ohio. Dad was Irish Catholic, and Mom was Evangelical German Baptist with a lot of superstitions. Take a working-class family of 13 and put them in a three-bedroom house built in 1908, and you'll never have a "dull moment".

The family lived in the house for 10 years. We didn’t have cell phones, tablets, laptops, and WiFi. We only had a black-and-white TV with a 12-inch screen. We could get three blurry channels that didn’t broadcast until five p.m. We didn't have very much “one-on-one” parenting, but we had a lot of freedom to explore and be creative, good and bad. Sometimes we were just “plain mean”.

The “first family” went from grade school to getting married. The “feral middle family” went from babies to high school. The “last family” went from birth to starting school. All overlapping in a ten-year period. It was a mixture of Happy Days and The Little Rascals (old TV shows).

Small slices of life that will make you angry, laugh, and maybe cry.

©2020 John M. Delehanty (P)2021 John M. Delehanty