The gift of life.(In real life: first-person America)

EAST LIVERPOOL, OHIO -- In the 1950s, my family lived amidst a mix of Irish, Italian, English, German, Jewish, Greek, and Ukranian families. It was a decidedly working class neighborhood that provided a labor pool for the local potteries, steel mills, and associated businesses of the upper Ohio Valley.

My favorite pal among the horde of children in the locale was Bruce Smith.

We hit it off right away as five-year-olds. Smitty was the kid who got straight A's without any significant exertion, understood fractions, read all the Hardy Boys mysteries, and was talented with his hands.

While I spastically smeared glue on my scale models of Sherman tanks and Nazi fighter planes, he was altering the plastic bodies of his car kits to make the doors swing open and the steering wheel turn.

Bruce laid out a scale model of the Pittsburgh Pirate's Forbes Field in the basement of his house; complete with a carved wooden bat that pivoted on the floor thanks to rubber bands and springs. There were baselines, a painted infield and outfield, and bricks representing infielders and baskets standing in for out--fielders. All you needed was a marble and you were in business for hours.

St. Aloysius Catholic Church and School was the center of our little universe. We were altar boys, choir boys, and Boy Scouts. We usually got stuck serving at the funerals, because the older kids took the weddings (which inevitably resulted in a tip from the best man). I didn't mind, though, because the local funeral director, Frank Dawson, always had a joke to tell or some sage advice to offer on the way to the cemetery.

My favorite time of year was Advent, when on Friday afternoons the different grades would pack the stairwells of our school and sing Christmas hymns. If the nuns and priests at St. Aloysius taught us anything--and they taught us a great many things--it was just how precious life is. Some of us, however, had to learn that lesson the hard way.