Did you ever have a traumatic experience in your life that you can’t get out of your head? Well, I did!
My name’s Richard Clifford, an administrative assistant of Irish-American descent living in Boston’s beautiful South Shore and this is my story.
CHAPTER 1.
“WHERE THE TROUBLE
STARTED….”
I guess it has to start with the time that I went into the hospital when I was 2 for a hernia operation. When Mom and Dad checked me into Boston’s Floating Hospital that night, they reassured me that everything would be all right. So when I took to my bed that night, I saw the Boston skyline and holding my Bugs Bunny talking doll.
I pulled the talking cord that all kinds of pre-recorded sayings by Bugs including, “What’s Up, Doc?” Little did I know that it would be the start of a traumatic journey.
I woke up in the middle of the night scared as a dog. That’s all I remember. Mom was around that night and I told her how I scared I was. And I wondered if I would survive it.
Well, I don’t remember the surgery I had that morning. But I will say this…it shook me up a lot. I spent a few days in the hospital and played around with the other kids who were staying there. And a few days later, I headed home. I remember that Mom, Dad and I were riding on the MBTA home and I was crying all the way through the ride.
Anyway, the T would be a very special part of my life later on. After all, it’s our public transportation system here in Boston, one we love to hate a lot. The delays on the trains, the loud announcements of calling the T if you “See Something,” irate employees who get upset with you every time you have an emergency and rebuff your apologies with angry snarls of “Have A Nice Day,” the politics inside the management, well, you name it.
But when I got back home, something had happened to me. I was screaming all night and keeping my parents awake. I was withdrawn and acting like a nut. So they resolved to take me in and have me checked out.
I was too young at the time, but here I was wondering what was happening to me. Here I was having my brain scanned by neurologists, being interviewed by mental health specialists, having examinations by the doctors, and so much more while they were trying to find out what was wrong with me.
At the time I was growing up, in the 1960s, people like me were being put into mental hospitals(they would later be closed in the 80s and 90s, with their former patients ending up on the street). Educational systems frowned upon people like myself, thinking they’d never amount to much. The world was tailored for “normal” people, not people like me.
I was diagnosed as having autism, a learning disability where a child’s development is stymied by different factors. In my case, it was a case of having a medical procedure being performed. I was too young at the time, but I was wondering why I was having my brain and body being picked at.
It was simple; my Mom and Dad were concerned about me and wanted to plan for my future.
My Dad, Patrick Clifford, was born and raised in Killarney, Ireland and came over to America in 1949. He grew up in that town with several brothers and sisters who later would follow him over. My Uncle Dicko, who was one of his brothers, would later run a food shop on High Street. Another brother, Doney, would be diagnosed with a similar condition like my own. He had a learning disability that limited his options, as well.
My Mom, Catherine Walsh Clifford, was born here in the USA, but her Mother, who was my Grandmother, was born in County Mayo. She grew up at the time of the Irish Rebellion and was sick one night as British soldiers looked for a gun smuggler associated with the Irish Republican Army. In the end, they gave up and left her alone.
I shall share that story at another time when I get my facts on this straight.
Anyway, Mom and Dad married in 1956 and were married for 32 wonderful years until Dad died in July of 1988, only 24 hours after I’d been canned from a mailroom messenger job at Putnam Investments. The funeral that would follow later that week would be an epic event, one that I’ll return to later.
My sister Peggy was born on May 16th, 1959 and my brother Coleman was born on the day before New Year’s Eve 1959(December 30th., to be exact). I was born on June 19th., 1961(the day that black slaves in Galveston, Texas learned that they’d been freed by President Lincoln). My sister Patrice followed on the Fourth of July in 1963(several months before President Kennedy was assassinated), and my youngest sister Diane was born on Mom and Dad’s wedding anniversary of June 23rd., 1970.
And were it not for their support, I wouldn’t be the man I am today, let alone writing this autobiography.
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