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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=368666" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Booger McNulty and Me</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">In 1948 Booger McNulty's coal yard stirred <br>constant gossip among the citizens who lived <br>in little bungalows on narrow blocks<br>in my far corner of Chicago. <br>That was more than 60 years ago, <br>a time when families took Sunday walks <br>and went back home in time to hear<br>Jack Benny on the radio. <br>A Sunday walk didn't cost a cent, <br>a price my parents could afford.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>When my parents took a Sunday walk, <br>my sister and I always had to go along, <br>and every time we'd pass Booger's place, <br>I'd hear my mother ask my father <br>what could possibly be on the other side <br>of Booger's 10-foot fence.<br>Hoping to avoid a conversation, <br>my father always said he didn't know<br>but he believed it couldn't just be coal. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Back then, every kid in the neighborhood <br>wanted to climb that fence and look around. <br>But Booger didn't feature visitors. <br>According to the boy whose keister caught <br>a chunk of coal from Booger's slingshot, <br>there was nothing on the other side<br>except for pigeons and a lot of coal.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>In the bungalows surrounding Booger's place, <br>immigrants from everywhere slept off beer and garlic <br>when they weren't working, which was pretty often, <br>according to my mother. My father always worked, <br>digging graves with the other men, <br>most of them, like him, from Ireland.<br>He dug graves because some Bulgarian <br>broke his nose, after which my mother ruled <br>no more boxing. He'd been undefeated until then.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>I was ten in 1948 and I'd climb Booger's fence<br>when I was certain he was gone for the night. <br>Inside the yard I'd climb the piles of coal <br>until I got tired and then I'd go home<br>and take a bath before my father saw me.<br>My mother never let my father see me<br>cloaked in the soot of Booger's coal<br>and she always made me promise <br>never to go back to Booger's again.<br> </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But on Easter Sunday in 1948, <br>I went over Booger's fence a final time.<br>My mother had taken pains that morning <br>to get me dressed for the Children's Mass <br>and sent me off with a caution to be good.<br>I always went to Mass, every Sunday, <br>and I would pray and sing the hymns <br>and usually I was good but this time <br>the weather was so nice I decided <br>to go to Booger's instead.<br>He wouldn't be there on Easter.<br>It would be just me and the pigeons.<br>But I was gone for hours that day, <br>and since no one knew where I was, <br>a furor in the family flared up, <br>as I'll explain later.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>At school on Monday, Timmy Duffy, <br>unlike me a favorite of the nuns who taught us, <br>told me every other boy in class had made it <br>to the Children's Mass on Easter. <br>'And where were you? ' he asked.<br>I told him I'd been sick and thought <br>with all the polio going around, <br>I didn't want to cripple anyone on Easter.<br>Timmy accepted my excuse because<br>we were all praying for Mickey Kane, <br>who'd spent a year in an Iron Lung.<br>'And so, ' said Timmy, 'even though <br>you weren't there to help, we sang <br>as loud as we could on Easter, ' <br>something our class always did to keep <br>the nuns in the aisle from paying us a visit.<br> </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I may have sung no hymns that Easter <br>but I probably looked pretty spiffy<br>scrambling over Booger's fence <br>in my new blue suit, white shirt and tie. <br>I had a wonderful time in the sun<br>with pigeons careening in the air.<br>I was free to climb my favorite pile of coal, <br>toboggan down on my duff, <br>and then climb a different pile<br>and toboggan down again, <br>far more fun than any sled in winter. <br>Hours later when I got hungry, <br>back over the fence I went <br>and headed home for dinner.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Every Easter Sunday, we'd have <br>ham and yams, Brussels sprouts <br>and rutabaga, favorites of my father <br>from his youth in Ireland. <br>But when I got home that day, <br>we didn't eat right away <br>after my father saw me.<br>As I recall, his reaction was <br>more Neanderthal than usual.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'Molly, ' he roared to my mother, <br>with his hand on the back of my neck, <br>'the little bastid says he went to Booger's! <br>He never went to Mass! ' <br>And then, despite my mother's protests, <br>he grabbed from behind the attic door <br>a belt that had been hanging there for years, <br>waiting for a felony like mine to happen.<br>I knew right away what I had to do <br>and so I dropped my pants and bent<br>over at the waist as far as possible. <br>Without a word, he stropped my arse.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>I didn't cry, gosh no, since tears <br>would have brought additional licks.<br>We were Irish, don'tcha know, <br>so we didn't cry and we didn't watch <br>English movies on TV, either.<br>The accents of the actors would remind <br>my father of the Black and Tans, <br>the English soldiers who imprisoned him <br>on Spike Island, off the coast of Ireland <br>when he was just 16.<br>They grabbed him barefoot in a stream <br>sneaking guns to the IRA. <br>In 1920, Irish boys ran guns for the IRA <br>barefoot through the bogs and streams, <br>provided they were big enough. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Decades later in Chicago, a stranger, <br>dressed like a Mormon on an urban mission, <br>rang our bell and told my father <br>he was from the IRA and had a medal for him <br>in honor of his service 40 years earlier. <br>He said 'It took a while for us to find you.' <br>My father hung the medal in his closet <br>next to the tan fedora he wore to Irish wakes.<br>He always went to wakes, hoping to meet <br>someone 'from home.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>So there I was that Easter Sunday, <br>standing in our tiny parlor with my pants <br>napping at my ankles, the result <br>of a wonderful morning at Booger's<br>and a terrible afternoon at home. <br>Now,60 years later, <br>when that Easter Sunday comes to mind, <br>no matter where I am, I whisper, <br>just in case he still can hear me, <br>'Pops, I haven't missed a Mass on Sunday <br>since I got that Easter stropping.<br>I guess I learned my lesson.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>And then I tell him, as politely as I can, <br>that if he can get a pass from wherever <br>the Lord has stored him, he can verify <br>my Mass attendance with my wife and kids, <br>the last of whom, a son, moved out on us <br>Christmas Eve,2010, even though <br>the boy promised his mother and me <br>a ride to Midnight Mass in his new Hummer.<br>Two feet of snow we got that evening.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>My father would have loved that snow. <br>Back in '67, when we got 30 inches of it, <br>some of it in drifts as high as Booger's coal, <br>he was just delighted by the winter scene, <br>so much so that he had the two of us <br>shovel frantically for hours, <br>albeit in our usual Trappist silence. <br>When we got back to the house, <br>he told my mother, <br>with more than a dollop of flair, <br>the hairs in his nose were frozen. <br>tThank God my mother had his tea ready, <br>steaming hot, as it should be, in its cozy<br>next to his favorite chair. <br>And she gave me lots of cocoa, <br>swirling hot with marshmallows <br>floating on the top. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Now every New Year's Eve at midnight<br>(and this has been going on for years) <br>I see those same marshmallows <br>when it's time for me to hoist a glass <br>and make my toast to Holy Week 1948, <br>the week that I absorbed without a tear <br>Booger's slingshot and my father's belt.<br>'Praise the Lord, ' I shout, <br>'and pass the ammunition.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>As the years go by, <br>fewer guests know what I mean. <br>But most of them <br>never had a chance to hear <br>Jack Benny on the radio.<br>The young ones always ask<br>where I got my old fedora.<br>A couple of them have even said <br>they'd have it blocked and cleaned.<br>But most of them, I'm certain, <br>even though they went to college, <br>never saw a relic.<br>They think the old fedora's<br>just a hat.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Donal+Mahoney">Donal Mahoney</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=368666" data-title="Booger McNulty and Me de Donal Mahoney" data-description="In 1948 Booger McNulty's coal yard stirred 
constant gossip among the citizens who lived 
in little bungalows on narrow blocks
in my far corner of Chicago. 
That was more than 60 years ago, 
a time when families took Sunday walks 
and went back ho..."></div>
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