Dad's Home
Little Paul stands on the landing on the stairs leading to the upstairs bedrooms watching for Dad's car to turn off Main Street onto Roycroft Blvd. He soon yells at the top of his lungs "Dad's Home" so everyone inside and outside the house can hear. Everyone scurries about finishing their assignments before Dad arrives. Dad's four door '36 Buick swings in the driveway and squeezes into the garage that was built for a much smaller car. Dad goes around the house wiping corners with his white hankie and gives the kids pats on the back or a hug for jobs well done.
Charlie and the boys go shopping for groceries at Sauders Market on Egertsville Road where the butcher sets aside some good but less expensive cuts for the family. On the way home, they stop at the Cunningham's farm greeted by a couple of Great Danes and the children do their best not to let on how frightened they are. They pickup fresh milk and chickens that are "dispatched" while they wait and return home.
Jim is chief cook this week and is busy in the kitchen preparing Spanish rice and cottage cheese, one of the favorites that Dad taught him to make. Dinners on and everyone sits around the table, being sure to keep one foot on the floor as they reach for bread and butter and pass the entrée around. Desert tonight will be chocolate cake that Jerry baked this afternoon. Each of the children will eventually take their turns at cooking except Bob who Dad says "can't boil water without burning it" and is not allowed to cook. Bob, one of the smartest of the gang, is not unhappy about being fired... Could it be that he burnt those dinners on purpose?
Up at 6am, bathed and dressed by 7 sharing the only bathroom, have breakfast and walk 1.5 miles to Christ the King school with a stop at the Gustina's house on Darwin Drive to drop off Paul... the scene is repeated each day. After school its the same routine going home. Weekends are busy with family duties like doing the laundry in a washing machine that has a set of hand-cranked rollers that squeezes the water out of the cloths which are then hung on lines in the basement in winter or the back yard in summer. The ironing is done on a "mangle" that has a round, padded rotating arm and a hot bar that presses the shirts, pants and other garments. There is yard work in the summer like mowing the grass and cutting the tall weeds in fields around the property with a scythe; then carrying all the cuttings to the burn pile at the back of the yard.
