"Back home, I live in a mansion!"

Living with three other boys in your room isn't that tough. However, until you learn to live with and accept their foibles, it can be a bumpy endeavor. And that was just the three others in your room. There were about 40 boys in the entire dorm. When you count all those boys, plus 40 more in the older boy's dorm, it made for an interesting and eclectic mix of personalities and imaginations. We were all hungry for love and acceptance. 

Some of the boys were bed wetters. Some were bullies. Some cried a lot (OK, I cried a lot). Ultimately, we were all from very similar situations at home, back in the city. That's how we ended up in St. Basil's. 

I can vividly remember telling stories, and hearing stories about how rich our families were back home. One boy used to tell us about how his father drove a Porsche, and how his mother ran a successful business back in Queens. Others would talk about their swimming pools and fancy homes. We never questioned the stories, even though we knew in our hearts, even at eight years old, there was no validity to any of these fantasies. 

The truth is, we came from nothing. Back home, for me, there weren't even lights in the house. Our electricity would get shut off every month. Some days, we'd have to beg for food from the local grocers in Brooklyn. When we didn't beg for the food, we stole it. That's because we were poor, dirt poor. Sometimes, when you're a kid, and you're poor, you don't really notice. Sometimes adults would protect you from the truth, and make you forget how tough times really are. Well, that wasn't us, we knew. 

Even though the lights went out at 9 p.m. sharp, we stayed up all night sharing our fictional tales. This is how we coped with the reality of our lives. We were dumped in the church's lap, because our moms (sometimes dads) couldn't or wouldn't take care of us. Imagining a better life back home, made the pain of being abandoned easier for some reason. We didn't realize it back then, but those imaginary tales opened our minds and hearts. The stories paved the way to bigger, much loftier, goals that would shape us into the adults we wanted to be. But honestly, it's really who we wanted our parents to be. 

We spoke about our parents like they were our heroes. It was almost like we were making excuses for them. We were justifying their actions. We forgave them immediately, but deep inside, we knew the academy was our new home. We also knew we would rather eat well, sleep well and play games with our new family, than suffer back in the real world.