Frank,

I was the youngest of 10 and I learned all I wanted and then some about respect, diversity and tolerance within the household. No need for the public schools to teach me about diversity or tolerance; the teachers could actually just focus on reading writing and math! Oh yah and civics!

Amazing how much fun a stick was! But then we had pretty creative imaginations growing up and never seemed to be bored. Of course all the choirs better be done!

My Father had a belt with little Indian beads on it that hurt like hell across the back of the legs, but the thing that was crazy about doing something wrong is that I never did it again! In fact as I would be sitting in my room I was more mad at myself for being so stupid rather than angry at my parents for doing something wrong, not sure how they did that?

I used to play on the pipes in the furnace room like they were monkey bars and remember all the dust from the asbestoses insulation falling in my eyes and mouth. We (6 boys) slept in an unheated attic and would run down stairs on winter mornings and lay beside the baseboard radiators to warm up. It was there that I would chip off trophy size lead paint chips suck on them and spit them at my brothers!

Might explain why I spend thousands of dollars catching a fish I just release anyway?

Ed