..baptismal ceremony at the cathedral ?

to produce this namesake child-- in my humble opinion--
because of all the over-exposure to atomic fallout radiation
from all the above ground open-air atomic bomb testing in this country
in the late 1940s and 1950s.... is my personal theory on the reason for
Jr's craziness and incompetence... (and his previous heroin addiction
probably had a lot to do with it as well!)


In my own family, among my older siblings,
there were 'birth defects' in two out of five children
born between 1948 and 1962-- seems like a bad percentage!

(me, I'm the youngest,
who was 'in utero' during the Cuban Missile Crisis!)

My older brother, who was born in the early 1950's had some kind of physical problems
(diaphragm possibly ?? not sure)
which required surgery early in his life, has also suffered from a speech impediment
which still makes it difficult to understand him, for those who don't know him--
and sometimes for those who do!

and the next child born about a year after, a daughter,
is 'mentally handicapped', formerly called 'mental retardation'--- perhaps 'mild'
(although as I recall the story, my parents were advised
to 'institutionalize' her-- but they refused to do it!)

Luckily with her, the condition is not so horrible to be obvious
upon a first meeting--- but when you get to know her,
it becomes obvious that something is 'not quite right'--

She is hopeless when it comes to math, monetary transactions
and often simple logic, and once she makes up her mind
on any particular topic, any argument based on 'logic' is completely hopeless,
which frustrated me extremely as her younger but smarter brother....

I am ashamed to admit that I was cruel to her,
and when she made me angry enough I called her a "retard"--- more than once
(but I was only about 9 or 10 years old at that time...)

My mother finally took me in hand and clued me in---
saying something to the effect that
'That is not true--- and if it IS true
you should have enough compassion to stop saying that to her'


My mother gave me a 'light-bulb moment' with that,
and I never called my sister that again!

And.... in our much older years, I have apologized to that older sister more than once,
that I had been mean and cruel to her when I was still a child---

and I think she appreciated that apology, even though
she seemed to have long forgotten my childhood cruelties!