My Mom was a yeller.
With the births of five sons preceding the delivery of the long hoped for daughter, she had a lot to yell about. It couldn’t have been easy raising five boys, although as a group we were relatively well behaved. But still, we were boys.
With no adult male role model in the home, we relied on Mom to teach us how to be men. It was a daunting task for her to be sure.
These were the days before a rap across the back of the legs with a belt or an ear pull were grounds for a visit from family services. As boys, we all pushed boundaries. Often the lines were boldly redrawn in very loud and unmistakable terms.
She was in charge.
Mom pushed us hard to do well in school because she knew that it was important. She also knew that there were other things that we had to learn. A childhood of living below the poverty line taught me lessons that could not be taught in a classroom setting. The streets of Bed Sty, the Lower East Side, and the South Bronx in the 60’s and 70’s were not places for the weak willed or the ignorant. If we weren’t careful, we knew that life could take a horrific turn in an instant. Tenement fires, idle youth in the streets, drugs, gangs, and crime were just some of the obstacles before us.
Mom stressed the importance of sticking together. She wanted to make sure that anyone who had a mind to mess with one of us was assured that they would have to beat down all five of her sons to get to the one. It worked in that this tact prevented more fights than it allowed.
We were lucky.
She’s mellowed some over the years, but she can still boom her voice over the noisiest clatter in a room to get our attention.
Mom succeeded in seeing us all safely into adulthood. This is a feat that required untold hours of work and a diversity of skills to accomplish, yet there’s really no place for this kind of achievement on a resume.
There’s something wrong with that.
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Ray } – 
