Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 4:51 am
I'm a middle child. I was back home in Vancouver the other day, and my mother was drunk on tequila, as is usually the case, and she explained the tale to my brother (who lives in Vancouver), my girlfriend, and myself.
"We had Patrick, and I said to your father 'Well, I want another boy, but I want the first one to be in school first' so four years later we had you, Billy, and it was perfect. You were both born in April, so we could combine your birthdays, and you were four years apart, so we could hand down school books easily. Your sister though, she was a mistake."
Its funny that my sister, who was apparently an accident (Ireland didn't allow the sale of contraceptives besides condoms and spermicides without prescription until 1993), is the smartest, most attractive, and most driven member of my immediate family.
Also, as I've recently started reading Harry Potter on my Kindle for the first time ever (LATE TO THE PARTY) I have realized that my experiences as a young boy in Ireland going to buy my school books with my mother and older brother are very similar to the Weasley experience, which is really very funny. I remember having to wear my older brothers school jumpers and use his old Gaelic school books just so my parents didnt have to spend more money.
Because Kino did it first, this is me and my ridiculously small family.
My family is particularly small, despite the amount of Catholic siblings. My mother had five siblings (one deceased) and my father had three. Only one of my mothers siblings has a child, and only one child at that. On my fathers side its a bit different. The following picture contains the Tramore branch of the McDonnell clan (my fathers side of the family). As such it contains my grandmother and all her grandchildren.
We're standing outside of her 200 year old Victorian house (known in Tramore, Ireland as "the pink house") and this is the only photo that exist of my grandmother and all of her grandchildren, as a result of being spread between Ireland, the U.S, and the Netherlands.
P.S: I'm the one wearing the tie. Lazy lot. We had to visit a grave that day for fucks sake!