Daddy always worked a lot. His time was spent between sales jobs and working in printing shops. Jimmy and Tony were bad often and were regularly threatened with the heavy hand of Daddy returned by our outnumbered Mommy.
Mommy would clean and cook and wash clothes, [0] sometimes dress up for work and leave them in the hands of Grandma Kern—who no brat in their right mind messed with, her boasting about breaking various yard sticks on her son and our older cousin falling on keen little ears. She would even tell them that even though we were behaving for her, she knew that “you little monsters can’t wait for me to leave so you have a free rein with your poor mother.”