...As you can see by now, I do have a rather large family, which means I have the daunting task of introducing them, one by one...bringing them to life, through my insights and memories from long ago to present day...I thought I would start off with my 5 sisters...each of them equally an important part of my life...and they can equally identify all of the good times and the bad...that has somehow transpired so quickly as time marches on...I imagine we can all go back 40 years as if it were yesterday...and remember so many of those cherished times which was the Camelot era for us all...So here we go...From oldest to youngest...
...Maureen........Maureen was the oldest and probably the boldest of all my sisters...She was always a bundle of energy and always out front conquering new worlds for each and everyone of us to follow...She was the one entrusted with holding me in her arms as my Dad sped furiously, thru every red light from Christ Hospital up to Childrens Memorial Hospital when I was only a few weeks old...She would later on be the person who taught me to read and even farther down the road...be the person who talked me into going to DePaul University...We had so, so many good times throughout our lives...and it would be hard to not go on and on...about some of those special moments...Maybe later...
...Patsy........Patsy was the artstic and very smart sister who was very gifted and also equally loving...I can remember spending an entire summer in a body cast in the hospital and Patsy would come every day and play Crazy Eights with me while my Mom would sneak off and get a nap out in the car...She would do some very funny things like making a giant, 6 foot, Easter Bunny out of snow in the backyard up in Williams Bay too...I think I still have a picture of that somewhere...Throughout my life...Patsy was always intensively searching for medical ways to enhance my life...and you can't ask much more than that...
...Kathy.....Kathy was far and away the most humorous one of my sisters...She just always had a fuuny way of looking at things...and my Mom would always say that me and Kathy had the Burke sense of humor...something from her Mother's side...Kathy would take me up to the Tastee Freeze for an ice cream cone, then take me back to the swings at Carroll Park...She had a very, child-like personality, that would come out whenever we would have a blast running around the Park, and it was always kind of sad to have to walk back home...at the end of the day...Kathy was very much a free spirit and in her own right...and she continues to inspire me to this very day...
...Joan......Joanie was a great deal of fun who was always cooking up her famous mostocholli for me all the time...I've never seen anyone on Earth who can type as fast as her...Throughout my life she has always been one of my most trusted, dearest companions...I can still remember being at her wedding reception and crying because I knew I was losing another sister from the house and it was never going to be the same again...We shared so many fun times together, whether it was going down the huge slide by her apartment in Chicago Ridge or just hanging out with her at the end of the day, when she was a teenager, while she was rolling her curlers into her long, long hair, eating cheez whiz and crackers, laughing away...Life would just not be the same without her wonderful smile and her gift for gab...
...Karen.....Karen was my youngest sister and she was also so much fun to be around growing up...I can remember her dressed up in her Saint Ignatious Cheerleading outfit and doing cartwheels back and forth thru the center of the living room...Later on, I'd always notice the latest paperback novels she would be reading...Jaws, The Exorcist, The Godfather...In her own way, she was on the cutting edge, of what was going on, during the 60's and 70's...She had a very eclectic style...She was a wizard with a sewing machine and I can still remember her stapling new fabric over our old sofas up at the Lake...that lasted over 10 years...Of course, I mostly appreciate her being by my side in the early 90's during my hospital stay up in Minneapolis...when I was in the midst of rattling off 5 surgeries in 6 months...I'm absolutely certain there will be more good stories about Karen to come in the following pages...so stay tuned...
...Of course...you all have to realize that my sisters mean more to me than the few paragrahs that I've pieced together...I'm sure we will cover much more ground as these memoirs roll forward...I just can't say them all, or this fun journey would come to an abrupt halt...All in all, I was very lucky to have so many sisters...all five of them...to be a very important part of my ever changing world...and I hope these memoirs leave an indelible mark...in the inscriptions of time of the life and times of Jim O'Leary and the special people...my sisters...who meant so much to me...
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