"We are born astride a grave - WaynesWorldStage.com

pictures of naked people were doing in our attic. Ilearned many years later that my mother did thedrawings. She was a student at the Chicago ArtInstitute. A very good one I must add. I probablygot all of my creative genes from my mother.When I was six, and started school inNorth Carolina, I began to have a problem withtwo bullies who lived down the street. One wasseven and the other was nine. I don’t remembertheir names, but I’ll never forget them. One day,they forced me into an alley that was strewn withgarbage. They took off my shoes and socks andthen picked me up and put me down feet first ona large watermelon rind that was covered withbees. I was stung repeatedly on the soles of myfeet. I ran home screaming. My mother was smalland gentle but she was very angry. She stormeddown the street to talk to the bullies’ mother.Kids in the neighborhood told me that my motherpunched the bullies’ mother in the face andknocked her on her butt. My mother denied it,but I never had a problem with those two kidsagain.I wanted my father to teach me how tofight. In addition to having been TommyLoughran’s sparring partner, he was alwaystelling stories about how, as a kid in school, hehad to fight his way to school and back. This wason the south side of Chicago; my father lived in27