The Callans and McClarys, by John Edward Callan - Callanworld

Introduction
My earliest memory is of a May afternoon in 1965. I was four
years old, standing on my tiptoes on the front steps of our family
home in Gates, a town just outside Rochester, New York. Until a few
weeks earlier, I had been the youngest of five children. I was straining
that day to see number six, Albert Francis Callan, born April 26, who
had come home from the hospital a few days earlier. The living room
was full of relatives, so much so that I had been told to go outside to
play.
Before long, I had tiptoed back in to see what all the commotion
was about. I found myself standing amid a forest of knees in the crowd
of grownups, just to get a glimpse of him. Just like his musical fans
would decades later, I wanted to hug this little grinning boy, the latest
The Callan kids, almost complete: Back row, Maureen, Bernard,
Linda; Front row, Stephen and John, ca.1963
in a long line of
Callans to enter
the world with a
wry smirk that
promised years
of mischief
ahead.
My next
memory is of
our grandfather,
George Callan
Sr., conspiring
with me in the
dark basement
hallway of a
Rochester
apartment
building he
managed in the
Johnny and little Albie, ca. 1966.
Gramp (George) Callan, in a festive mood at
his 50th wedding anniversary in
Rochester, N.Y., in the summer of 1978.
~ 1 ~
The Callans and McClarys
early 1960s. He was a solid, strong man just hitting 60, which seemed
a lot older then that it does now. He and our grandmother, the former
Gertrude McGivern, lived rent-free in their Rochester apartment in
return for the upkeep of the building. On this rainy summer day,
every floor had the warm smell of sweat and cigars.
The long hallway approaching Nan and Gramp’s apartment
echoed nicely as I screamed at one of my four older brothers and
sisters. I had just been pushed off of a wooden freight wagon that we
used to ride up and down the hallway. Gramp poked his head out the
apartment door to investigate.
Rather than hand out firm justice, by spanking the sibling who
had pushed me, and all the others as accessories to the crime, Gramp
took me aside. He said he’d like to show me something in the workshop.
He broke the end off of a
cigar he snatched from an ashtray
near the apartment door. He
stuffed the stub in his pipe, lit it up
with a few quick puffs, and ambled
down the hallway in a blue smoky
haze, fumbling with a huge ring of
skeleton keys. Once inside the
workshop, he rummaged through
his greasy old wooden toolboxes,