The concept of wealth is a very relative one.  (See "Third World", "Middle Class", "Living wage", "The wealthy", "Poverty level" in...

My brother Jack and I apparently had free access to the kitchen.  My mother must have been lenient.  I believe, though, that we did clean...

Growing up Catholic was not for sissies! Even after our First Confession and Communion at age seven we weren't done with learning about...

We attended Holy Child Jesus School for eight years where we were taught among other things all about sin by the nuns using the Baltimore...

We were still living in Cutchogue, L.I. when Sheila was born.  Maureen had just gotten her driver's license before Kerry, our 9th child...

Some days when we couldn't think of something to do, Jack and I and a couple of other kids would decide to go camping. Now camping for us...

An unexpected and seemingly unrelated question has arisen as an outgrowth of these essays on my childhood days, namely, "Why did you and...

In the 1930s, we got news in"news broadcasts" usually in 15-minute segments in the morning and in the evening.  Big news flashes would...

In either 1939  or '40 when I was nine or ten my family and Aunt Mae's family shared a large rented bungalow in Montauk, L.I. Then...

People of my age have lived through a different world-wide crisis from COVID 19--and that was World War II. The war affected every one of...

At lunchtime in Holy Child School we went downstairs to a big room which was partly below grade but had high windows on one wall. There...

In first grade at Holy Child School there was a box of cards, each had a single word printed on it.  We used them to form sentences...

Although we had been living our entire lives up within New York City, to us kids in the 1930s and 40s, "the City" meant the island of...

In the 30's and early 40's while we were still in elementary school, play had certain forms, cycles and strictures. Since cars were far...

In the 1930s we kids celebrated very differently on certain dates. New Year's night: our parents woke us up so we could go out on the...

If you can remember the childhood of Ralphie, depicted in the film, A Christmas Story, that was quite familiar to me.  The simplicity of...

I should have set the time frame better in the first blog. I was born in 1930 and spent childhood in Richmond Hill, a section of Queens...

The boys in the late 1930s and early 40s were all nuts about comic books.  The big one of course was Superman. Then Batman and Robin,...

Although I have never been mentioned in theatrical reviews or columns I did appear on the Broadway stage before a live audience with...