Would you look at that TV ?!! I’m going to have to show my 2 sons this picture… how in the world did we manage to survive growing up with such a device ?!! And how about the massive amount of tinsel on that Christmas tree ?! We used to have the really big glass colored light bulbs on the tree, I remember at one point growing up when we first took the bulbs out of the box and had them laid out on the floor to see if they all worked, one of them burnt right through the carpeting, left a nasty burn mark as a lasting memory. I think my dad was training us to be waiters from the looks of those outfits.
Brotherly Love… me on the left and my brother Mark on the right. I wish we would have remained this close as we grew up, he was good to me. Not sure why his eyes were closed, he must have been prophetic and knew what was coming in my life and couldn’t bear to look; there’s another picture later on where my first pastor had his eyes closed too… hmm?
Looking at my mom today she reminds me of Adrian from the Rocky movies. She worked so hard to take care of all of us. I hope you find these pictures heartwarming mom?! They are an honor to what you did for us!!
My dad was an extremely hard worker all the days of my youth. He would get up at 5am to go deliver mail in Bedford, a city near us, he did that for 29 years. He also was a real estate agent part time, and played around in the stock market with investments, which he did pretty good. When he was younger before he got married, he was also in a polka band, he played the accordion, but I don’t remember him playing too much.
I had a good childhood, we had a lot of fun, and many good memories, I love my family and they were quite good to me growing up. These childhood memories are an honor and memorial to them!!
This one has classic meaning to it. My sister Vicki was great, she was probably wondering what a goof ball I was going to become.
You can’t see it, but the birthday cake says Happy Birthday Bill and Mark. What’s interesting is that my brother Mark’s birthday is May 4th, 2 weeks before me, but my name was first, small thing. Mark was actually born exactly 54 weeks before me, just about 1 year apart. I realized later in life that I really never liked having to share birthdays so close to my brother, we would often share cakes and parties because it was easier for my parents, but deep down I didn’t always feel special in my parent’s eyes, I didn’t have that separate “special” time to just celebrate me.
I thought I was the coolest kid at the pool, I was taking my younger sister to a pool party of some sort. I eventually was in a swim show at this community pool performing synchronized backstrokes and patterns and dives. I had no musical talent growing up, but I could fake it. I tried once to learn the drums in 6th or 7th grade, but it was so boring early on tapping drumsticks on a rubber pad to learn the notes that I gave up. WOW, funny stuff.
This is the house in Maple Hts. Ohio where I grew up my entire childhood, 5448 South Blvd, only about a mile from St. Wenceslas where I went to school. Which I walked many times in brutal northern Ohio winters… I think I shoveled hundreds of feet of snow off that driveway and sidewalk. I remember a time on a hot summer day, my neighbor Rick (who lived on the right and about the same age as me) and I were playing with some water guns and we had the wonderful idea of trying to hit some cars as they drove by. We stood behind the tree on the right which was about half that size about 40 years ago, but we were only about 10 years old so pretty small ourselves. Well, sure enough I think Rick fired a shot at a car and it went right through the front window of the car and hit the driver! When the car screeched on the brakes and started backing up, Rick and I bolted to the backyard and hid behind his garage hoping the guy didn’t find us… he didn’t… we survived, it was a great shot on a moving car!!
These are 2 pictures from a Christmas Eve party at my grandparents house, my mom’s mom and dad. On the left are some of the aunts, uncles, and cousins; it’s remarkable how one my cousins at the bottom right of the picture looks very much like my own son Jonathan. The picture on the right was of the gift table with all the presents my grandma and grandpa bought for the whole family. In this picture I was probably about 15 years old, but when I was much younger and the family wasn’t as big, that table which was probably 4’x 8′ had presents stacked all the way to the ceiling! My grandma and grandpa would sit in front of the table and read off every name on the presents and hand them out, it would take hours to go through them all. By the time we were done, there was toys, and gifts, and wrapping paper every where… IT WAS GREAT !!
Can you find me? I’ll give you a hint. My son thinks I look like Ralphie from the movie The Christmas Story. They actually filmed that movie in Cleveland Ohio very near where I grew up in Maple Hts. You see my teacher’s name? Sister Mary Fatima… tough Catholic nun stuff, but she was pretty good. Now Mrs. Kasprisin was something… She was later on, I think 4th or 5th grade, one day in her class I dozed off in my desk and she fired a full size chalk board eraser and nailed me right in the head from about 15 feet away, great shot! And then I had to stay after class and clean ALL the erasers.
I tried my best at little league baseball, I just didn’t have an eye for hitting the ball. I was proud to play for my great uncle Joe “Red” Klir, he had a local aluminum siding business and sponsored a lot of sports teams in our city, he was kind of famous. Do you see the size of those belts, I think they were about 4″ thick.
This is the only picture I have of great uncle Joe “Red” Klir, this was probably in Acapulco, where he traveled often with the polka band.
My 6th grade school picture, can you find me now? Was I getting better looking or worse? I certainly wasn’t gaining self esteem, a lot of self confidence issues, the early days of fear of man… or more like the fear of fellow 6th graders and trying to fit in and be accepted. Some of which is quite normal for a child, but without the right spiritual guidance and direction, the groundwork was being laid for substantial challenges as an adult. A large amount of performance based religion and acceptance.
You are a product the environment you are raised in. We are going to talk a lot about our childhoods.
This is St. Wenceslas School and Church that I went to for grades 1-8, and where my family went to church most Sundays. TRUE STORY… that blacktop parking lot in the front of the picture is where we would have softball games during recess, like 7th grade vs 8th grade. There was a kid in my class by the name of Chris, who I did like and was my friend and he lived close to my home too. If he hit the ball and was going for extra bases or even thought the play was going to be close, he would literally slide into a base, we’re talking blacktop asphalt! It was the craziest thing, every time he did we would all cheer… and laugh. He went through more than a few set of school pants, he would tear holes in the knees or have black stripes and smears from his knees down his shins to his ankles, and he would go right back to class like that… funny stuff, good memories!
St. Wenceslas Church. Right behind where this picture was taken there was 4 confessionals that the priest used to sit in and hear confessions. It had lights at the top of each room, like red and green to know when you could go in. It had the wall between the priest and a divider you could leave there and not see the priest or you could slide it over and go face to face. I guess it all depended on the priest if you liked him or not. Intimidating for sure.
I was an altar boy for a few years, I always thought the picture of the crucifixion on the back wall was pretty cool, if you saw it up close it is really very well done. I used to love ringing the bells/chimes during the service, and once in a while I would catch a host during communion when it missed the target, my favorite was the incense for funerals, sweet sweet aroma. I did use to sneak in the back and eat some host and once in a while make sure the wine hadn’t spoiled… maybe that’s why I like wine today, it was sweet like kool aid. It was nice too when they had mass during the school day because once in a while when I was on the schedule I got out of going to class.
The school I went to had these 4 bowling alley lanes in the lower level, kind of the basement. It was fun when you got to 7th or 8th grade and it was part of school. Years later I would join a men’s bowling league that came there on Friday night, they had a full service bar right behind where the picture was taken, which was only as wide as the 4 lanes, and it had a bathroom next to it also. Looking back, I think it’s hilarious that this Catholic Church and school offered a full service bar at their bowling alley. And let me tell you, this wasn’t the choir meeting to have fellowship if you know what I mean.