Mom always had hot Malt'O Meal ready for breakfast, even on hot summer days. A wire milk basket with six empty milk bottles waited on the sink board for pick-up by the milkman. On Mondays, milk was delivered. Us five kids would finish off one bottle every morning at breakfast, maybe more some mornings. On school days eggs would be sizzling in the frypan over the blue flames from the gas stove. Mom always complained about the milkman coming when the eggs were ready. I remember the flames from the burner jumped into the frypan one morning, but Mom always knew how to handle such things, though the eggs were a bit black in our sandwiches that morning.
Egg sandwiches, made with Wonder Bread, were our usual lunches we carried to school. We had chickens in those days and plenty of eggs, before Mrs. Matthew complained to the city. I remember a carrot, or some fruit was put in our lunch bag with those egg sandwiches. We were always reminded to bring the bag home. My little sister got jelly sandwiches with the crust cut off for her lunch. Those crusts were put in my lunch. Every morning us boys were given our assignments for the day, by dad, before he left for work. Micheal left early to serve as an altar boy. On snow days, Francis and I were up an hour or so early, given our snow shoveling chores, and told which neighbor to get done first. Before anything else, we began by bringing the wash down and loading it into one of the washing machines. Pulling our boots on and hunting for dry gloves in the basement, we readied ourselves for the cold. Boots buckled, with shovels, lunch and schoolbooks packed in our book bags, we left the house ready to do battle. We were usually pretty wet when we finished shoveling. Francis and I began classes wet and tired. I remember Miss. Raush hitting Francis in the hallway one morning for being late. Dad was right there the next morning turning Miss Raush's ear red. No nun or teacher was allowed to put hands on Francis. Whacking Michael or myself was ok though. Hiding the shovels in the school basement, we were ready to shovel around the church after school. Dad believed in work , and doing volunteer work was something he taught us.
Summers were different, only in what chores we were given. Francis had his lawns to mow, Michael still served as an altar boy. I was assigned to garden work before I could play. Taking rhubarb to Mrs. Martin or green beans & peas to Mr. Kish, after pulling weeds from the garden up the street. Sometimes my reward was a magazine. I loved the cover illustrations, and people saved them for me. Dad subscribed to the Saturday Evening Post, which had the best covers. I couldn't touch the Post till Dad was done reading it. Mr Pauls, our mailman would keep it for a day to read it himself before delivering it. Sometimes it came with jelly on a page… Mom assured Dad it came with jelly and not to blame me. I never read any of the articles, just collected the illustrations. Drawings of women in girdles were forbidden for me to save.
Mr. Adams, up the street, tossed out a magazine full of pictures of women with tassels on their breasts. Mom checked what magazines I brought home for my collection every day after that. She never explained those tassels, told me just to forget them. My attempt to draw one of those tasseled ladies wasn't very good and cost me my drawing privileges for a week. There weren't any weeds left in any of the gardens that week. I learned to hide the works of the tasseled women…
Some days there just wasn't anything to do. Too many old people in our neighborhood. Pestering people was what mom said I was good at. Drawing them was seen as pestering them. I drew most as cowboys, a lot of sleeping cowboys in my sketchbook. “Don't draw people without their permission and no tasseled ladies was the rule.” No more crawling under the lilac bushes to draw Patty Mathew, no more staring at Mr. Koos, who was alive when Custer was killed at the Little Bighorn.
Drawing for me was a form of collecting things and Mom's praises was one thing I craved. Dad would grunt and ask where I got the paper and pencils from. Then ask if I ever tried reading a book.
