Part 1: Aunt Ann's House
Some ancient history, if you'll indulge me. It will help you understand my family a little.
My dad was born in 1920 to Henry and Elizabeth Meehan. Dad never talked about his mom, other then to tell me she
died of a heart related condition when he was 14. He did talk a lot about Henry Meehan Senior when I got older. It seems
that granddad was the town drunk. He couldn't hold down a job and what little money he did earn went towards booze.
When his mom died my father got a job driving a truck for somebody. In 1934 14 year olds could get truck driving jobs. At intervals, a police department
would call dad and ask him to pick up granddad from the drunk tank.
This led my father to vow that if he ever had a family he would hold it together come hell or high water. He fulfilled that vow
but it cost him.
After his mom died, dad spent a lot of time at his Aunt Ann's house. Ann Meehan, Henry's sister, helped keep my father sane and stable.
Now we flash forward to 1955.
In 1955 dad had been married to mom for five years. After they got married dad discovered that mom was a born again Christian with bipolar
personality disorder. Whoops!. One day dad had reached his breaking point and came home from work intending to tell mom he wanted a divorce.
Too late! Mom was pregnant with alChandler's current incarnation. So dad swallowed hard and stayed with mom.
At the time they were living in an apartment they deemed too small for three, so they looked for a house. While they were house hunting
Aunt Ann invited them to stay with her. So the first six months of my life were spent at Aunt Ann's house.
I remember Aunt Ann. My dad used to go there a lot. When I was younger granddad lived there too. He had cancer, courtesy of his Lucky Strikes unfiltered.
I just knew him as a kindly old man. My dad had little use for him but dealt with the old man, part of the holding the family together thing.
I have a kindergarten picture of him. He's not looking at the camera but he was in the shot. It was taken after my kindergarten graduation:
That's him, looking at my sister. He didn't last too much longer after that. I'm quite certain my dad and Aunt Ann were relieved after he went.
Aunt Ann's house seemed old, very old. There was a huge radio there, about waist high, a relic of the legendary time before television. All the furniture had
antimacassars on them. And there was also the victrola. I loved playing that thing. Aunt Ann hadn't used it in years and the turntable speed was set much higher
then 78 so everything sounded funny to me. When Aunt Ann died without a will, the family snagged it for me and it resides in my office, next to the desk.
Aunt Ann's house looks a lot more cheerful today then it was when I was a kid. But 80 year old women don't do a lot of home repairs. I have one souvenir
from that house:
It's the key to Aunt Ann's front door. When Aunt Ann died, dad kept it for the rest of his life. When dad died I found it among his things and I've carried it around with me ever since.