What was my childhood like? It was what it was. Whether it was good or bad or in between is entirely subjective.

So I was a bastard child (in the original sense of that term, i.e. born of parents that weren't married) living in a single-parent home on Welfare (public assistance). So what if my mom spent most of her time sitting on a bar stool at one of a few bars she frequented while the five of us kids (three from one guy, two from two other guys) and her mentally deficient brother (his IQ was very likely in the 50s; he couldn't say actual words and couldn't do much of anything to take care of himself) to fend for ourselves. We had a roof over our heads (even if it was occasionally condemned by the health department) and food in the cupboard (even if we did have to make our own meals). We only had two rules at home: go to school every day it was in session and take a bath once a week. We weren't molested (my dad raped two of his daughters by one of his wives; he later told one of them in his deep Appalachian drawl, "Oh, I only did it a little bit"). We weren't abused (well, there was one incident where my two older half brothers were being beaten by our mom's then boyfriend and another incident where my younger half brother and I were being chased with a plastic baseball bat by this guy our mom had checking in on us from time to time).

Of course, it was the 1960s and 1970s (I was born in 1963); so, it was obviously a very different era.

Our mom died in 1975 (at age 41) and the five of us kids were split up - I went to live with one of my dad's daughters (the one he later told "Oh, I only did it a little bit"). She was 22 at the time and she had no clue on how to deal with an 11 year-old that had already started puberty and was used to running the streets unsupervised. A few months later I went to live with my dad's cousin (who adopted the son of my dad's oldest daughter who died in a motorcycle accident when the kid was three months old). What a culture shock that was! All of a sudden I had rules, responsibilities, accountability - not to mention having to bathe every day and being in a middle class neighborhood. I started junior high school around the same time, which is a traumatic experience even under normal circumstances.

But there weren't any drive-by shootings or drug sales on the street corners or gang bangers trying to force us into their gang.

What can I say? It was what it was. If anything, it made me a fiercely independent individual.