Familial Funniness in Black and White

I came across the following picture recently…


Is that a hoot or what? It’s a picture of my entire family that was taken (judging by how old I look) sometime in the summer/fall of 1965 or early '66.

Here’s the line-up for ya, folks…

Front Row: Eileen, Me, Marty

Second Row: Dad, Mom, Anne

Back Row: Denny, John, Phil, Vince, Steve

Me, being placed front and center on Mom’s lap shows how misshapen cute I was as a baby. But, you know what’s sad?

I had more hair when I was relatively new than I do now. And you know what would make my mom sad about seeing this again?

She would say, as she often did…“Seven boys and not one damn priest among them.”

Ha. Well, Pax Vobiscum, Mom, but you happened to spit out seven boys who like their Sundays free.

Now, Phil died some years ago. He passed a little while prior to my Dad dying. Phil was my favorite.

He was always trying new things. He had been a teacher, an amusement park character, a PBS TV Station Manager, and an ICU Nurse among other occupations.

He packed this all into a mere fifty years and in between three wives. He was frickin’ hilarious in an arid, philosophical way.

Some may think it was intimidating being the youngest boy of seven, but I was never intimidated by them. You know why?

When I look at my five brothers in the back row, two words jump to the forefront of my mind…Herman’s Hermits!!

It’s kinda hard to be intimidated by Herman’s Hermits…even when one is six months old.

All the boys are pretty damn funny, however, Vince is mainly amusing only because it’s 2009 and he still sports a mullet.

The two sisters? Eh, they’re not as much funny as they are mean. Ha. Kidding. I kid because I love.

Okay, I was kidding about the mean part, but seriously, neither of them are very funny.

Eileen’s daughter was born only hours before my Ryno. My sister Anne served as a nurse and a Captain in the U.S. Army in Vietnam.

When her tours were over, she had the distinction of being stationed at Ft. Sam Houston and bringing LBJ his morning fifth of whiskey cornflakes while he was in the hospital being treated for syphilis something or other.

My brothers?

While Steve was too young for the draft, the other four in the back row never got tagged.

Which is good because, well, they’re all a bunch of pussies, who obviously were half-blind anyway. So them not going to ‘Nam probably saved lives…American Lives.

I really have no point to this post. The picture just struck me funny. And to this day…

All of my brothers, even my memories of Phil, continue to strike me funny.

And my sisters? Eh, not so much.

Cheers!!