I Think I Settled On The Title

A Mother's Love Is A Blessing No Matter Where You Roam. Keep Her While You Have Her, You'll Miss Her When She's Gone -- Angela's Ashes.

First Of All There Is Always That Artistic Challenge Of Creating Something. Or The Particular Experience To Take Slum Life In That Period And Make Something Out Of It In The Form Of A Book. And Then I Felt Some Kind Of Responsibility To My Family.

I Had No Accomplishments Except Surviving. But That Isn't Enough In The Community Where I Came From, Because Everybody Was Doing It. So I Wasn't Prepared For America, Where Everybody Is Glowing With Good Teeth And Good Clothes And Food.

People Everywhere Brag And Whimper About The Woes Of Their Early Years, But Nothing Can Compare With The Irish Version: The Poverty; The Shiftless Loquacious Father; The Pious Defeated Mother Moaning By The Fire; Pompous Priests; Bullying School Masters; The English And The Terrible Things They Did To Us For Eight Hundred Long Years. Above All -- We Were Wet.

I Can't Go Back. The Past Won't Go Away In This Family.