I grew up in Lowell, Massachusetts in the 1960s, a blue-collar, working-class Catholic city with no minorities except for the Protestants.  My dad was an engineer, a nice, quiet guy who kept his own counsel, and my mom was the town liberal.  Both my parents grew up in the Depression, and both lost their fathers, their family businesses, and their homes.  My mom had to move to a small town that she hated, my dad was sent away from his family when his mom had a breakdown, to a small town that he loved.  My dad spent a year there as an outcast from his family, and says it was the best year of his childhood.  His ashes are buried there, along with those of my mom and my brother, in a single grave. 

My mom was also the liberal in her family.  Her brothers, my uncles, were rough-and-tumble, smart-ass young Catholic guys who became successful enough in business to do well by their families, and were pretty pleased with themselves because of it.  My mom was the Little Miss Perfect of her family.   My uncles were pretty conservative, but when my mom was around they acted like wingnut reactionaries because it guaranteed a fit of outraged indignation from her.  One of them was my dad's best friend, and introduced my mom and dad to each other.  My uncles were a lot more fun than my mom. 

I was pretty much of a nerd, a poindexter among tough guys, but I was savvy enough to have tough friends.  One was Speedy, a great guy who loved guns and was a hunting nut.  After the movie Dirty Harry came out, he went right out and bought a .44 Magnum.  It seemed to weigh about fifty pounds and almost broke my wrist when I shot it.  One year Speedy went hunting and hit a deer with his car on the way.  He just strapped it to his car as if he had shot it, and brought it back.  After that every time Speedy went hunting we asked him if was taking his guns or was just going to use the car.  Then he'd tell us that he was taking the guns, but was going to practice first by shooting us all. 

My other friends were Skippy, Gomez, and Mike.  Gomez was Portuguese, we just liked to call him that.  Mike was the Pigpen of our group, and was always getting teased for it.  People used to call his house 'Garbegia'.  We thought that was hilarious, and I still do today.  I always liked that 'e' in 'Garbegia'.  Mike became a State Policeman and died in a car fire.  Gomez runs an environmental group.  Skippy I lost track of. 

In junior high they put me in the smart classes, which wasn't much of an improvement because this was Lowell.  One of my friends was Frankie.  Frankie had a brother who was in college and left a bunch of skin mags at Frankie's house when he went back to school.  Frankie was popular in junior high. 

He also was an entrepreneur in sexual entertainment, junior-high-school style.  He got an older guy to buy a deck of nudie playing cards for him, then sold them at a profit to all the kids in school.  I think I had the two of hearts and the nine of spades.

I wasn't so popular.  I was really good at math, which in Lowell practically made you a homosexual.  The girls made fun of me, so I learned to play basketball, and got good enough to make the J-V team as a sophomore.  That was my introduction to high school basketball coaches.  Wow.  Those guys made my uncles look like Gandhi.  I hated it and quit after a year. 

Then I volunteered at a summer camp for emotionally disturbed children and found myself.  I started volunteer programs and worked in them throughout high school.  This got me in to Brown, where I lost myself again.  My mother went into a mental hospital, I started using drugs, thought I was cool by doing it, and dropped out. 

I did the 1970s manhood ritual of working my way around the country doing odd jobs, then finally took an office job in D.C.  That made me finally understand why people got college degrees, and I went back to Brown and finished, and then became a math teacher. 

I also went into therapy, and it really helped me.  Plus, I looked at my therapist and said, "Maybe I could do that job".  And that's what I did.  I met my lovely wife in grad school, had my beautiful daughter shortly after, and have been lucky enough to find happiness after quite a long search.   Thanks for listening.