All Dressed Up

One Sunday, fifty years ago, we went on a family boat ride from Boston to Provincetown. My greatest recollection was of being terrified of a circus clown greeting us as we disembarked.

(L-R Karen, Jimmy, David and Kathleen)

The Twins And I

Cape Cod Canal
backyard and frontyard in West Roxbury

Here we are in the spring and early summer of 1957, that's a half-century for all you arithmetic buffs. Karen and David would be ten years old in these pix, which would make me five. Elvis Presley's All Shook Up was dominating the nation's airwaves.
I could not possibly have had anything to complain about and my expression reflects that fact.

Baby Einstein

The more I examine this surprise trove of childhood slides, the more I begin to question the whole "child genius" tag I've worn pinned to my lapel forever. This snapshot indicates that sipping on a straw while holding a bottle of Coke and a whiskered balloon tested the limits of my capabilities. I certainly know better than to try that juggling act today.

Dear

If I'm four in this shot then my sister Cornelia would be eighteen. Since my Mom got rheumatoid arthritis when I was an infant, I was wicked lucky to have a full crew of older brothers and sisters to take care of me. I must have had trouble saying her name as I referred to Cornelia at this time as "Dear" (pronounced Dee-ah).

At The Zoo

Here's a shot my family just located from a visit to the Franklin Park Zoo. I have no recollection of this occasion but in this particular scene it seems I'm attempting to entice a mangy deer with my own version of a "salt lick". The young lady in the foreground appears aghast and on her way to alert the authorities.

Thus Spake Munn

In 1915, when Cornelius Robert Owens was 3, the little tyke had flouncy, blonde ringlet curls (as was the style on young boys of the day). A traveling salesman stopping by their tiny Roxbury home inquires, "Little girl, may I please speak with your mother?" My dad pulls a toddler nutty, barking at the guy, "I'M NOT A LITTLE GIRL! I'M A BIG MUNN!"
Thus spake Munn. The family legend of how my father got his nickname followed him throughout the century.

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