I grew up in north St. Louis in an Irish German Catholic neighborhood. Those distinctions were very important back in the 50s-60s. It was our culture. Our lives revolved around our church and school. I grew up in a different environment than most. My parents split when I was three. My mom, two sisters and I lived in two rooms in the basement of my grandparents' house. It was a shotgun style house, meaning long and narrow, just three rooms. My aunt and her two kids lived on the first floor. Her husband had passed away. My grandparents lived on the top floor. The house was 100 years old in 1969 when we sold it. It had been built by someone in our family and someone in our family always lived in it. We didn't have heat in the basement in the winter so my mom, two sisters and I slept on the first floor with my aunt and her two kids. So there were seven people living in three rooms. My mom, my two sisters and I slept on a sofa sleeper. The seven of us ate dinner together every night. On Sundays we all went upstairs to my grandparents' for Sunday dinner. During the winter on Saturday nights my grandparents would come down to my aunt's. The adults would watch Gunsmoke and Death Valley Days. The three youngest kids, my sister, my cousin and I would play in the kitchen. In the summer we kids would play outside until 9:00. An ice cream truck, Mr. Softee, came around. There were a lot of kids in the neighborhood and we all played outside. My family would sit on the front porch. We were the only ones with a porch. We walked at least a mile to school. Our neighborhood was poor. I didn't realize we were considered poor until I got to high school.