I was the only boy in our family. I had five sisters. For the first six years of my life, I was the pet of the family. My dad was afraid that I would turn into a sissy. You can substitute whatever word you like for sissy, so he was out to make sure that I turned into a real man.

I had a lot of strong male mentors. I had an Uncle Pat who was a veteran of the First World War. My dad was a steelworker, and Frank was a steelworker so I had a lot of very strong male images around me. He made sure of that.

I did boy things such as hunting, with my dad. Dad was very good until we moved into a new house. I guess he got it into his mind that he wanted to pay off that house. He and my mother went through the Depression, and they were very conscious about money. So my dad used to work seven days a week, twelve hours a day. He was a machinist, and worked in a steel mill.

He used to work for Jones and Laughlin steel in Aliquippa. He lost his thumb while he was on the job, and they refuse to pay him any compensation. In fact, they wouldn’t even give him any time off. He went to the doctor, got stitched up, and was expected back at work the next day. When he asked them for compensation they told him “no, this accident was your fault!"


My Dad Becomes a “Walking Time Bomb”

So he quit and went to work for a small mill and Coreopolis. I think perhaps because he was working so much that my dad started to drink. He turned into an alcoholic. He became the exact opposite of the father that I knew. My life at home became a full of fear. He beat us with belts and there were many violent incidents with my dad.

My dad was kind of a “walking time bomb.” As soon as he started drinking everybody ran and hid. He had a sudden change a personality when he drank. I think that trigger was pressure from work and trying to make enough money. After all, he had six children to support.

He had a lot of pressure on him, I’ll give him that. And alcoholism ran in the family. My aunts and grandfathers were alkies. They had Irish tradition in their blood.

As a matter of fact, I’m an alcoholic. But I’ve been sober since 1979. I swore that I wouldn’t do the same thing that my dad did, but I became an alcoholic just like he did and started treating my children the same way. But Luckily I hit AA, alcoholics anonymous, and that started to turn my life around.

My mother was a homemaker during this time but she didn’t drink. She was, however, the co–dependent with an alcoholic. She would throw up our hands; she was as terrified as the rest of us.

One time, my sister gene went out to the dance without my father’s knowledge. I think she was a freshman at the time. He caught her. I was in bed at the time and I heard her started to scream. Then, my mother started to scream.

I went down stairs and looked into the living room. He was kneeling on top of her and swinging at her with both fists. He would hit her with one and come back at her again with the other one.

My mother was standing there screaming: “Jerry, Jerry, you’re going to kill her!”

I was scared so I went up to my bedroom and got a .22 rifle, and I put one bullet in it. I was afraid he was going to kill her. By the time I got down the stairs my knees wouldn’t hold me up anymore. I was so scared that I went downstairs on my butt.

At that point, my dad opened the door and saw me sitting there with the gun. I looked at him, and he looked at me. I could tell by the look in his face that he knew what he had done; he had gone too far. He just stood there and stared at me until I went back upstairs.

I unloaded the gun and put it away.