William R. Norman

Other nation still have some pride in their surroundings.

A ma*****na plant towering over mom’s tulips is casting shadows on the brick garage. It’s about eight feet tall, fat and bushy, with a stem like an axe handle. Skunky, too.
So, you can’t say that I didn’t know it was there. It would have been a flimsy excuse anyway. This was 1972, at a time when you could go to prison for holding a few seeds. We’re maybe looking at thirty years here. Guys have done way more time for a lot less w**d.
We really hadn’t expected much from the Panama Red seeds that we tossed among the flowers. The spot proved to be ideal. The sun cooked that side of the garage all day long, so the tan brick became a dutch oven that radiated heat well after sundown. Even better, since dad didn’t think the house needed rain gutters, the water dripped right onto the plants.
If anyone had bothered to look, this massive illegal w**d could easily have been seen from the air, or the gravel road in front of our house, for that matter. However, onlookers who inspected the Norman property in Limestone would quite sensibly conclude that not much you could see there would be unusual.
That is to say, there was plenty to look at: a pile of bricks behind the garage covered by a pair of beat-up encrusted mortar boxes; overgrown garden way in the back next to the old barb wire fence that was still there many years after 1957, the garden still producing fat tomatoes adjacent to the septic field; wooly lawn overdue for a mow; play forts and blankets and doll clothes in the front yard; plastic swimming pool lying flat in the back yard, unreeled hose willy-nilly, kids in trunks running through sprinklers; half-dozen bicycles tossed aside; kids running barefoot with plastic cups of Kool-Aide, lemonade booth nearby; motorcycles up on kickstands; cars up on blocks in various states of repair.
Most of the motors ran ok, especially the VW bug, which you could not kill – and we tried; us brothers sold the bug back and forth over the years, always for the same price: $200.
Tom was usually tinkering with a hot rod, pulling out engines or swapping transmissions, or both. One of his trannies was stolen by as****es who thought they were getting a four-speed because that’s what the shifter k**b said: 1-2-3-4-R. The tr**ny was only a three-speed. We laughed about that one for a long time, picturing the dumb s**t trying to shift that fu**er.
Ironically, a state cop, Bob Just, lived a short way down our gravel road just beyond the crossroads. Bob never cruised past our place. If you didn’t give him a reason to pester you, he left you alone. Bob was popular with the kids, and always waved as he drove by. It felt kind of nice knowing he was there, keeping an eye on things.
So, basically, a giant w**d growing alongside the garage wasn’t much cause for alarm. Not in our neighborhood. People had their own drama.
There were good times. Some of my fondest memories are the summer barbeques when families would push picnic tables to our backyard. The adults drank beer, burned meat, chain-smoked and listened to salty stories being told by Durl Preston, a war veteran and carpenter from next door. The Devines one summer brought sirloin steak to a cookout. They were made to feel ostracized by the people eating burgers and dogs. It wasn’t their fault they liked steak. Strange they should be made to feel like outsiders because of their meat selection. That all dissolved and soon they were having fun.
All the kids were running around until long after dark, playing tag, catching fireflies, or tempting fate with a game of lawn darts. We’d fetch beer for the adults and it was just too easy to skim the top of the can or bottle. Me and Tom did this enough to get tipsy and run around like monkeys. It’s a strange sight to see your little brother tip back a quart of Old Style at age seven. Dad thought all that nonsense was funny.
He also thought Mr. Preston was funny with his off-color stories that made even the crustiest neighbor blush. Nobody called him on it because he was such a commanding character. Plus, dad and the other men liked him. Durl wasn’t mean, just gruff. I think he was decent to his wife, Louise, and kids Brian and Durinda.
He did, however, know every cuss word out there and used them in creative ways – often stacked together in sentences, one after another. Mr. Preston was a sergeant in WW II. So, that makes him Sgt. Preston, not of the Mounties, but of the Marines, and a hard-fighting platoon of them at that.
Dad connected with fellow vets. His list of friends was top-heavy with wounded war veterans from places like Utah Beach, Guadalcanal, the Philippines, North Africa, Italy, you name it, they fought it. If you cracked this group socially and you weren’t a vet, you were special. Very few guys did. You almost had to be a bartender to get respect. And if you didn’t like beer and cards, they didn’t care to know you.
Between Sgt. Durl and the Myna bird at Engleman’s Café, we learned a s**t ton of dirty words at a young age. We rode or walked down Route 17 to Engleman’s truck stop for a burger and fries, sometimes a creamy shake, and try to provoke the bird into a blue streak while yakking with the Englemans behind the counter. Truck drivers seemed to find the talking bird amusing, perhaps conversation-starved as they were.
We practiced f-bombs in Rick Maddox’s garage. Somebody would produce a stolen cigarette and a pack of matches. We copied the older kids who leaned on hot rods in their leather jackets and duck-ass hairdo and smoke before school. The car we leaned on in Rick’s garage had been parked for some time and was full of rust and cobwebs.
My little brother Tom was not only a shade tree mechanic and motorcycle daredevil with a taste for practical jokes, but also a bit of an entrepreneur. It was his idea to tell a fib to Mr. Harbour to get jobs slinging burgers at Ron’s. Before that, he went downtown to get the Journal paper route. Then he subbed half of it out to me -- the long half, with no-tip Tony Panozzo at one end and at the other, the Hansen’s barnyard collie, a miserable, she-devil gangster mutt that waited until your back was turned to give chase. Dad, a union man, busted my wildcat strike over conditions one winter with the threat of violence.
At any rate, Tom had a nose for business. One fine day I walk into the bedroom at the Limestone house and see my brother breaking up a rather large pile of ma*****na from Panama. First thing we do is smoke a fat one and slap Led Zeppelin on the turntable. We’re good.
His aim was to bag up “lids” in the parlance of our time. As we fill the bags, we saved a bunch of seeds and tossed them behind mom’s tulips. We didn’t think much of it after that. But then, this freakish w**d heavy with flowers had taken solid root and was getting more than enough light, heat and water alongside the garage. The top of it tickled the soffit.
We never did get to smoke it. Sure enough, someone did us a favor by taking it. This brazen act of thievery probably saved us a ton of misery. I thought for years that Sgt. Preston had snuck over one night and pulled it out. I’m not sure he cared, or even knew what it was. He was no idiot, so he probably knew.
Turns out it was taken by some guy that brother Steve had met years later at Fat Rat’s Tavern. The subject came up kind of like: oh, by the way, I’m the guy who stole your pot plant. It’s some consolation to know that it was pretty good. Still, I would like to personally thank the gentleman for saving us from ourselves. Reckless behavior would be a Norman trademark.

We took one look at the flooded ditch snaking through our neighborhood and decided not to let that beautiful torrent go to waste.
It had no name that we knew of, though we knew it flowed into Wiley Creek before joining the Kankakee River. Mostly it was dry but sometimes it had enough water to spawn frogs and crawdads.
That day it was swollen and dark with rich, brown Illinois dirt. And soon it would carry four adventurous goofballs on a thrill ride they would not soon forget.
A boat ride was in order. We had a crew of swashbucklers for the job: myself, brother Steve and the Carraher boys, Bob and Rich.
It had rained steady for a couple of days so the “creek” as we called it was full and swift. We would have to be on top of our game to handle this assignment. One problem: would there be enough room to get under the Route 17 culvert? We knew that to be a potential choke point, so we hiked down there to inspect it. We figured it would be tight but decided we could make it.
Timing was important. You wait too long and the water drops, so we hustled back to the house to fetch our “boats.”
We get to the house and grab two of dad’s mortar boxes that he kept behind the garage. They look like boats, but more like a barge than a canoe: rectangular with square corners and a sloping pan front and back to accommodate the mixing hoe. We pound out most of the dry mortar with rubber mallets. This lightens the load but leaves a mess in the yard. We’re on a mission.
I don’t remember if we asked for permission, but probably not. If you left dad alone he would leave you alone. He probably would’ve said OK. I think he liked seeing us have fun. After all, he was the guy who turned us loose with shotguns before we could even drive.
Besides, he considered it desirable if we were not inside making noise and pestering him for attention, which was pretty much a losing battle anyway. Dad was a solitary man, spending many hours lost in private daydreams.
We grabbed the boats and two long wooden poles and clogged our way toward the creek some 150 yards distant.
By then, the neighbors had grown accustomed to seeing us kids performing various stunts and shenanigans. I can see them now, watching us through the kitchen window as we clomp down the gravel road in our rubber boots, dragging two metal boxes through the rocks, shaking their heads and saying, “what are those kids up to now?”
I don’t blame them. They were the same people who got their windows soaped on Halloween for not getting on board with the program of juvenile extortion. They returned the favor by stiffing us at Christmas on our paper route.
We stopped at the ditch to look it over. There was more water than we’d ever seen. This wasn’t our first attempt, but the water had never been this high.
We had discussed crew lineups based on load. At age 13, I only weighed about 95 pounds, so me and Rich together probably weighed about a buck fifty total. About the same with the other guys. Bob and Steve took the lead boat.
We launched and came up pretty quickly to the Route 17 culvert, a concrete structure less of a bridge than structural support for the highway above.
We flattened our poles atop the boats, ducked down to clear the highway deck and popped out the other side. Flush with the pride of seasoned sailors, we were bold explorers seeking adventure in exotic lands.
We were to meet up with adventure sooner than expected. After we had traveled a couple hundred yards, we rounded a gentle bend in the stream and there it was, dead ahead, our biggest challenge: The dirty water was getting sucked with a swirling commotion into a large drain culvert, the kind that farmers install so they can cross the ditch between fields.
Steve saw the trouble ahead so he wisely bailed out. Rich and I disembarked as well. Bob stayed with his boat like a good captain, thinking that he could save it from getting sucked into the culvert. The force of the water was too much and it got sucked in anyway, with Bob gripping the top of the culvert holding on for dear life.
We laughed at first, thinking the whole thing was kind of funny, but then we quickly realized he was in trouble. Scrambling to help, I flopped on my belly to grab him by the shirt. Steve and Rich held my legs and with an effort fueled by fear and adrenaline, the three of us pulled Bob from the mouth of that raging culvert. I’ll never forget the look of terror on his face.
Bob’s boat got wedged inside the culvert. He could easily have been sucked in there with it.
All four of us lay on our backs panting hard for breath. After a bit we quietly rose and began to trudge home, pulling our surviving boat behind us. The walk was more somber than usual. We were soaking wet, cold and tired, grappling with the notion that we could have lost a friend.
The next day we went back to get the boat. Somebody, probably the farmer, had pulled it from the culvert and set it on top.
For years we never talked about that day. Nor did we see a reason to tell our parents. We also never took another boat ride down that ditch.

“Grandpa, what would I do?”
The old man could see the boy was eager to learn. He could read and that was good.
Gently he removed his dusty old work sombrero to reveal a sunburned scalp and an unruly patch of thin gray hair.
The old man drank deep from the clay mug of cool water the young man had eagerly fetched, allowing a rivulet to track past the high cheeks, weathered brown skin and trim gray beard. The boy watched as a drop fell from the old man’s chin to his clean white cotton shirt.
He set the mug down on a table tired and beat from the generations. Extending an open palm to the west, he said:
“There lies the trail where the rattlesnake and cottontail live side-by-side. Where the sun drags its feet having sprayed light on those distant purple mountains,’’ he said, pausing for another drink.
“Follow the hummingbirds in search of flowing wells,” he continued. “When you arrive, ask the first friendly face you see, ‘What am I doing here?’ Follow her advice.”
This he did. The boy and his b***o traveled many hours and many miles through the mountains west. He followed the hummingbirds by day, dining on dried rabbit in his travel bag, foraging nuts and berries along the way, at night marveling at the stars flung deep into the blackness and the call of the coyotes echoing off red canyon walls.
He reached the flowing wells and waited. The wells were alive with animals and wild things growing. Birds and butterflies gathered as if assembling an entourage and there she was, just as the old man said she would be.
They smiled. She seemed familiar, radiant with love. As he drew closer the aroma of cactus bloom filled the air.
He remembered the question. She said this:
“Pilgrim, if you take one message, consider this: Honor your wife, father many children and gather more food than you need,’’ she said. “Then care for the old ones, never let them die alone.”
“Be kind,’’ she continued. “And generous to people, animals and the earth, all are your friends.”
He wanted to know more, but it was time for her to go. Her parting words: “Go back and help the old man.’’ Then she was gone. Leaving only a sweet memory and the fragrance of blossoms.
After the long journey home and many thoughtful miles, the boy returned to the old man. They made tortillas and talked about the journey, the many sights he had seen, the new thoughts in his head, the wonderful old lady at the well.
“Grandfather,” the boy asked, “How did you know there would be an old woman at the well?”
“Not just any woman,” the old man corrected him gently. Then, allowing a pleasant grin, eyes moist with longing: “She is your grandmother.”
The boy was stunned.
“But grandfather, you said grandmother had been gone for a long time.”
“It’s true, my son,” answered the old man. “She was searching for something she lost a long time ago. It had to do with her innocence. She had her reasons. I loved her enough to let her go. She always wanted to know what was beyond the next valley. I just hope she found what she was looking for.”
The boy reflected on this for a moment. Then asked:
“Grandfather, why did you not tell me this before?
“You weren’t old enough to start asking questions,” the old man said. “Besides, you had to be old enough to ride the donkey all that way to the flowing wells.”
This made sense to the young man. But much of the rest did not. For many years he had wondered why he seemed to be one of the few kids in the village who did not have both grandparents living nearby and a big part of his life. Grandpa was there, yes, but he missed having grandma, not really knowing what had become of her. Grandpa always said she was searching for something. She loved us, but that she couldn’t stay.
But of course, now he was beginning to understand that not everyone has the same path. Indeed, as there are many different types in the village, there are just as many paths.
This should not be mistaken for complaining, mind you. The ideas she gave him, the love that came with it, was just the nourishment a young man needed to go out and face the world.

Kathy Ryan was my first real crush. I put that poor girl on a pedestal. I couldn’t help myself. She was cute and friendly and one of the gang. And she liked to laugh.
Her auburn hair had some blonde and red and was always done up nice. She wore a touch of perfume that you wouldn’t notice unless you were lucky enough to be inside her bubble.
She had the sweetest smile and she knew how to listen. She cared about people. Plus she was fun, and would gently tease you when you deserved it. I didn’t mind it one bit — the teasing. One minute of this heaven had me hooked.
You wanted to be around her. Like sitting on her front porch when Kathy and her younger brothers Dave and Mike would join us and a bunch of other neighborhood kids, riding bikes up and down the gravel road, catching fireflies, talking late into the hot summer night, falling into helpless teenage love with this beautiful angel from Limestone.
I started to think I was special. She made you feel that when she listened to you, it was the most important thing she could be doing at that moment.
We talked about things. Sometimes she would be sad about her parents fighting again. In all the time Kathy and her brothers were there, I never saw her parents outside. I never even knew what they looked like. You just heard them fighting. I learned what “assault and battery” was from them. Our shortcut to the ballfields was next to their house. I thought I heard Kathy’s mom say something one day about putting “salt on her battery.” Mom set me straight.
On occasion Mike and Dave would have lunch at our house and stay for awhile and watch tv when it was cold out and they needed to escape the house. Kathy was still inside, trapped in her room, probably weeping into her pillow, listening to her parents fight again. Knowing how trapped she must have felt broke my heart. She wouldn’t come over with her brothers. She probably figured three Ryans was one too many. That would be so like her.
The only thing left to do was talk. We would walk down to the climbing trees near Route 17. She never bad-mouthed anyone. Never heard her complain about mom and dad. But you could tell it was killing her by the way the smile left her pretty green Irish eyes in weak moments when her guard was down.
She didn’t like being sad. She was fun and smart and just a real treat to be around. She liked to climb trees and ride bikes and run and get dirty playing baseball with the guys before it was cool to do that. Everybody loved her. She was our Kathy. But no one loved her more than me. I was certain of that.
Kathy had other plans. In high school she absolutely blossomed as a woman. Ahead of her time for a 14-year-old kid. In addition to the fun, outgoing, smart young lady everyone loved, she was movie-star gorgeous, tall and graceful, with a delicate, china-doll face and all the class and style to go with it.
Guys from all over were charmed. They came to pick her up all dressed fine, hair greased back duck-ass style, driving Mustangs and Harleys they bought with money from pops. I was this pimply string-bean kid in a butch haircut riding a Honda 50 and mixing tile mud for dad.
Kathy couldn’t wait to get out. None of these guys were good enough for her, I was sure, as I watched her jump on the back of a motorcycle with yet another stud muffin taking her out to have fun.
She met Danny Hinderer in high school. They were about as glamorous a couple as you could get. Beauty queen and handsome star athlete. It made you kind of proud to know them. It was a perfect match. Until it wasn’t.
Danny was a wild mustang, all p**s and vinegar and wanting to go do things. I don’t think he was mean at heart, just unsuited to be a full-time partner. Kathy had this notion that she could tame the mustang in Danny, make him into her man, and her man only. They had twin boys. Cute little blonde haired guys. Handsome like their parents.
But it was just wrong. Danny was Kathy’s dream boat, but Danny couldn’t love her back as much as she loved him. When Danny left her with the boys, she couldn’t take the pain, so she snapped and took her own life.
We all were devastated. Stunned beyond belief. This woman with the huge heart and beautiful soul was gone. Our Kathy was gone without ever knowing the love she had hoped for. And so richly deserved.
The last time I saw Kathy and Danny together was in the front seat of my car. We had been hanging out at the Kankakee County Fair, drinking cokes and listening to the bands. They needed a ride home so we all hopped in my car.
I had just turned the key when the song “Never My Love” by the Association came on the radio. Kathy had me wait in the parking lot for a minute. She loved that song. Sad and sentimental, it’s a lot like her.
I cut the engine and turn up the radio. Halfway through the song I glance at them in the dashboard lights. Danny looks bored as if he can’t wait to leave. Kathy has him cradled in her arms with one hand on his cheek, absorbed in the music, her face pressed tight to his. Huge crocodile tears pour out of those liquid green eyes and slide down her cheeks.
That was the last time I would see my Angel from Limestone.

With few clues and even less planning, a deeply wounded young couple launch an American family adventure while never really figuring out that love is the reason for it all, not work, or pleasure, or the church pew you deserve based on the level of your tithing.
They would without question follow the dictates of a self-serving religion while working hard for the little house on the prairie. And pledging ten percent of their income to the church.
That would be my parents.
I think of the hours spent riding with my dad in the car or, just as often, the tile truck. All the wasted hours of unnatural silence. Not even the radio was on. Just the sound of the breeze in the windows. We could have been talking about everything from Einstein to Eisenhower, but no. Any attempt at conversation met with more silence. Most of the time it was not the evil silence, the kind where you felt he actively hated you, but it was more like the silence of indifference, the benign “leave me alone” type of silence.
It was not the momentary silence that two people will enjoy while digesting the new ideas put forth in a spirited verbal exchange. No, not that. It is just the unnatural quiet of two human beings ignoring each other. Mile after mile of agonizing silence. Dead, quiet, say-nothing-at-all silence.
Even in moments where he had the opportunity to come alive, to have been inspired, motivated, eager to pass down some fatherly wisdom.
Like the day he drove me to Charleston to start school at Eastern Illinois University.
Silence. Wind whistling in the windows silence. Not a word about goals, dreams, plans, interests, remember to use a condom, or even what the hell major did I choose. It was PE. I wanted to be a football coach, of all things. Couldn’t play it. Got hurt trying to play it. But I wanted to coach it. That career path would have been an absolute disaster.
Dad never asked about girls, or sports, or who the f**k killed Kennedy. When we got to the dorm, he didn’t even come in. He dropped the suitcase on the sidewalk, said “seeya” with a condescending smirk, got in the car and took off, practically burning rubber. Like he couldn’t wait to get the f**k out of there. I never got a call, a letter, or a visit the four years I spent clueless at EIU. From anyone, not just dad.
It would be many years before I would come to realize how unnatural it is to be so mute in the presence of another human being. But as I got to know dad as an adult, I began to see the pattern emerge elsewhere. His drinking pals and card-playing buddies liked him for that quality. He appeared to be a good listener. I’m not sure how they could tell, but he must have had a way of letting them know he was their pal. Maybe it’s the way he didn’t unspool his belt and whip the s**t out of them for any drunken reason he saw fit.
That was my role. I was the belt whipping boy. Also, the kicking boy, the slapping boy, the knock-me-to-the-floor-with-a-forearm boy. The other kids got some, too. He even whipped Jo once, she says. If I had been there to see that, I might have killed him. Bad enough a 200-pound gorilla whipping a 60-pound son, even worse to beat a helpless daughter.
There are times I came close as an adult to losing my s**t over stuff he would do. Like the time he bipped Alex Carraher on the head and made him cry. Alex was throwing rocks in the river, but his real crime was disobeying Wm. C. Norman after being told to stop. He had a special way of using his fingernails like ball peen hammers. The effect on your skull was blinding. I was in my 20s then, and benching over 200 pounds. It wouldn’t have been fair.
I don’t know what me beating him up would have proved, except to show him how terrifying it is to be on the receiving end of an angry beat-down. I’m glad I didn’t do it. I would have just felt bad now. At the time, though, it might have felt good. That scares me a little.

I got french-kissed one night after shutting down the grill at Ron’s Drive-In 1965.
It took me by surprise. I didn’t know you were supposed to open wide and explore. For her it probably tasted like cheeseburger with ketchup and pickle, since she mostly got my greasy upper lip. For me, it tasted like Marlboros and Southern Comfort.
Quite a thrill for a teenage grill cook from Limestone Township. The next time it happened I was ready. Many years later, of course.
She was a cute little cheerleader with short dark hair from Bradley, which meant she was exotic; a little naughty and loads of fun. Some of the cutest girls in the area worked at Ron’s during its heyday from 1959 to 1968 on Fifth Avenue in Bradley (now Kennedy Drive).
We kept the carhops running when Ron’s got busy. We normally had a couple of people front and back, making the famous shakes and bagging up burgers and fries for the carhops. Other places had girls on skates, even just down the street, but Ron wasn’t that adventurous, says Mary Jane. That aside, we had them running.
Once Ron got the place going for the evening, he trusted us to finish the night on our own. I was a good enough worker to stay busy and look for things to do, which is a nice habit to gain, if you want to stick around and be part of a team.
And we were a team: frying burgers by the dozens, stacking them up high under a tomato juice can and steaming the buns, a little trick that most joints don’t take time to do, but makes a huge difference in the mouth feel. We grill cooks goofed up some, but mostly did nice work. And we kept the place kind of clean, you’ll be pleased to know, if you’ve had burgers there in 1965. I learned a lot at Ron’s. Served me well for a life on the road.
People from towns all over came to work there. One kid even came all the way from Reddick, mostly just to meet people and hang out. Ron’s was great for that. Besides, if you’d ever seen Reddick as a teenager, you would know.
Big crowds of hot rivals would come in after high school ball games. You could feel the tension out in the parking lot if, say, Bradley pounded the crap out of Kankakee in football, or some such. Which seemed to happen a lot, not to mention that you had to travel to Bradley’s turf to hang out at Ron’s. Complicating matters, just down the road apiece, was the local semi-pro Catholic team St. Pat’s (McNamara), and all of their fans.
Ron liked seeing the kids and their hot cars, but he had to keep things moving and not let it become a parking lot. He would charge you to linger. Even turning people away. You had to eat and move on. Ron knew what kids liked and he had lights and music to set the mood. The food was simple, fast and pretty good. On top of burgers, fries, coke and root beer they had 50 flavors of shakes, malts and floats
I parked my little Honda 50 out back so it wouldn’t get run over by the traffic circling around Ron’s lot. Toward quitting time kids would come to the back door with booze and we’d load them up with burgers and fries. Bob Trautman masterminded a lot of this. He worked up front with my brother Tom making shakes and taking orders.
Trautman fancied himself as a practical joker. One night he deep fried a sponge, slid it on a bun with lettuce and tomato and sent it out to Mark Shultz, another Herscher High school kid. Mark was not amused.
Trautman had an old Dodge four-door tank of a car big enough for six people, so sometimes we would load up after work and go down by the river among the trees to drink and smoke and make out. Bob loved being the party guy. He was good at it. Broke my heart when he married Denise Wade, ‘cause I liked her, too.
The Ron’s adventure for me and my brother began the minute Tom lied to get the job. Ron Harbour wanted a kid to be 16 to work for him and Tom was only 15 at the time. He only had a few months to go. Ron gave him the job anyway out of respect for his brass.
Ron took a liking to Tom and put him up on a ladder to paint the building red. That was a color thing he had going. The girls wore short red skirts and white tops.
Tom protested that he wasn’t a painter. Ron said: “You work for me. Now you’re a painter.”
Tom liked it so much he would volunteer to work extra, didn’t matter what Ron had in mind, just so as to ride the girls around on his Yamaha, one of the first things he bought after getting his license that summer.
To apply for the job, they sent you to the house behind the store where Ron lived with his wife, Mary, daughters Peggy, Mary Jane and Barbara, and son, Michael. Ron died in an accident in the 1970s.
It was all very casual. You’d sit at the kitchen table and he’d ask questions. They were nice. Mary Jane, a little younger than me, grew up car hopping for mom and dad with sister Peggy. Barbara worked the back. It would only last until 1968, but it had a good run. It became the site of an Arby’s, which Tom would later visit to install ceramic tile.