“Both of our parents were very discipline-oriented. Not to the point where we feared them, but to the point where we knew if we did something wrong–and yes we were taught right from wrong–that we would be subject to retaliation. And, yes, we were put under the strap once in a while, but not real heavily. Just a reminder that this is what you get for sassing your mother and fighting with each other and stuff like that. The biggest thing we used to fight about was the fact that Gloria got her own bedroom and Bobby and I had to share a bedroom. I was younger than my sister and she was a girl, so I couldn’t touch her. I was older than my brother and bigger, so I couldn’t touch him. But they both had free-lance with me.
We ate what people turn their noses up at nowadays — casseroles, macaroni and cheese, wholesome dinners but just plain everyday dinners. We didn’t know about escargot. We didn’t know anything about shrimps. A lot of times it was just plain meatloaf and at that time fish on Fridays. No meat on Friday. We went to confession at least once a month. And on Sundays, at that time, there weren’t gardeners and we had the old push lawnmower and the backyard was constant weeds. So what we had to do is we’d wait until almost summertime when it all got dry and we’d go out and mow it. It looked pretty good. And we had a couple of pets that happened to be strays that came by the house. My mother would say, “Don’t feed them.” On the side we’d feed them anyway and they’d stay.
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