My parents married three days after my mom turned 18, which was the legal limit in New York in 1945 (might still be, I guess). She hadn't finished high school at the time and within a year gave birth to my oldest brother, Bob, then within a couple more years moved to Toledo, where my dad had lived most of his life until then. She gave birth to three more boys — in 1952 (Mike), 1955 (me) and 1959 (Jim). In addition to being a mother, she had other jobs at various times... as a receptionist at an office building, and as a postal worker. At some point, she also kept books for my dad's refrigeration moonlighting business (he worked full-time as a mechanic for Coca-Cola). When I was about mid-way through grade school, she decided to get her high school equivalent diploma (GED), then went on to get a degree in elementary education at Mary Manse College in Toledo, a now-closed Catholic-run college. In the spring of 1970, she graduated, and her brother, Skip, came in from Chicago, and her father and his wife drove in from Manhattan via Chicago, where he'd been visiting Skip and his family. My guess is that I saw my grandfather probably a total of eight to ten times in my lifetime. He died when I was about 25. When I was in 7th grade, my mom was doing substitute work at our school (Good Shepherd), and if I recall correctly, she substituted in my math class one day — without incident. She went on to teach at Good Shepherd for what was probably another fifteen years, although I suppose I could ask, huh? I find that a pretty amazing thing, and quite an accomplishment, considering the times. It was probably pretty rare then for a forty-something woman to take night classes for a GED, let alone go on to get a college degree.

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