This may be somewhat unusual, but I have always had three recollections of my early life. I am referring to when I was still in diapers. Two were with my grandfather, John Sereno. One when I was holding his hand to try and walk. We were in the basement on Sawyer Avenue. The time I was sitting on my grandfather’s bed. The third time I was walking down the kitchen hallway holding onto the wall. My brother was just barely crawling along with me. This was Uncle Sam’s house.
The next earliest recollections were when I was between three and five years old. The first was when I went to stay overnight at my grandfather John Padula’s. I was an ungrateful, spoiled brat. This was the first time I went anywhere overnight, and I cried and carried on most of the evening when they put me to bed. The other times were when my brother and I went to live with my dad and his new wife Margie. I remember taking naps with my brother and dad… in reality my dad did most of the sleeping. Another time I remember Margie and dad giving me a bath in the kitchen sink. Then, a few months later I started a Polish Catholic grade school just south of our house. The nuns were very strict. They hit you on the hand with a ruler if you were out-of-line. There are many memories of the school. My dad took movies of my first day of going to school. I had a brown school bag draped over my shoulder while he was taking my picture. He drove an old Buick automobile, and it backfired in the mornings on his way to work. Several of the kids and I would run to the window when we heard the car backfiring; I knew my dad was on his way to work at Sears & Roebuck.