Hey, it’s Dan. Welcome back. This is I, allegedly, and I’ve got a good one for you today. You know, one thing that they say is you can’t go home. Well, I want to say that you can. And one thing that I always wanted to do, ever since I was a little boy and hearing all the stories, was I wanted to go see where my mother was raised. And my mother passed away in 2018, and my uncle, the youngest of the family, has always said, you got to go back to Omaha. And I am here.

I’m in front of my mother and uncle’s childhood home. Now, this is wild because my mother and my uncle grew up with 11 kids. 11 kids in the family. Seven boys, four girls, they lived in a place with a little over a thousand square feet. Two bedroom, one bath place here in Omaha, Nebraska. Just wild to me. And whenever my kids would complain, I’d say, oh yeah, talk to grandma and see how tough she’s got it. And 21 year age difference in the kids, which was, you know, which is wild to think about having 11 kids.

My mom grew up very poor and, you know, but a lot was, you know, a lot of her roots and a lot of the way she was came from this home and living here. And my uncle, who became a very successful contractor, moved to Southern California because of my dad. And I’m going to show you my dad’s house, too. My father, when he was 17 years old, his dad came home and said, hey, listen, I sold the farm and I’m moving to Canada. And I have a bunch of relatives in Canada, distant cousins and things like that because of that move.

And my dad said, well, what am I supposed to do? Well, live in your car, live in your car. So I think that that shaped my dad. My dad would become successful and then not be successful and would go in up and down financially throughout his life. And my stepmother was an expert at spending his money. I used to always say that. But this house is unbelievable to think about, you know, all those kids living there, 11 kids with two adults living there. My uncle just told me about when he was a kid, there was a guy named Choo Choo Gelat, the greatest name in the world, Choo Choo Gelat.

One day they skipped school during lunch and came to this house and Choo Choo Gelat pulled out something that I’m not supposed to talk about and blew a hole in the wall. And they all got in trouble for this, went to school and were late. But it just formed when you hear these stories. It’s crazy, absolutely crazy. You know, my dad married my mom when she was 18 and I’m sure it was to get out of the house. I mean, geez, 11 kids. So my mom leaves. My mom and dad ended up having four kids and my older sister and my two brothers and I.

And it was absolutely wild to think that they lived here. So because they were so poor with Scarpello’s bakery up the street and the bakery was every Sunday they would give, you know, stale bread, things like that to the family to help feed them and make it easier on my grandmother. And my grandmother lived in there until 1994. Isn’t that wild to think about? Absolutely wild. Wild. A little bakery. Doesn’t look open right now. It’s got no sign. The bar and tavern that’s there. Now, this place is rich in history. This is the top of the hill and I’m at 24th and Pierce.

This right here was a potato chip company when my parents were little kids. And it was the Kitty Clover potato chip company. And because they were so poor, the company would sell a bag of basically broken chips, things that fell off the conveyor belt, little pieces, an entire bag for five cents. They would go by. And like my uncle said it was potato chip dust. And then Orton’s bakery took over. And my uncle, when he was a kid with his buddies, doing no good luck, we all did when we were kids, that window right there, the side of the building, get a shot of that.

They would boost each other up. And that window right there, they would steal the drying pastries and eat them, which was very cool. My father moved into a house with a man named Doc Perry, which to this day, I don’t know why they called him Doc. He was a bookie and did construction. And Doc Perry was a nice man, but he did that. Now, again, growing up poor, a couple of stories. My mother had the opportunity when she was 11 to go pick apples once. And if you pick an entire bushel of apples, they would give you 75 cents, which was all the money in the world to my mother.

This house that I showed you was moved here in the late 30s by two mules that drug it there as a kid house. They went out and then finished the house, if you could call it that, and they raised 11 children there. My mother, you know, World War I, excuse me, World War II happened, and she was leaving the movie theater. And they used to have something called 7-Eleven Night. Eleven cents for adults, seven cents for kids to go see the movies. Just leaving the movie theater, and a man pulled over in a truck and said the Japanese had just bombed Pearl Harbor.

And my mom didn’t know what Pearl Harbor was, but went home. But anyways, following that time, she went out, and when she was 11, went and was picking apples. And entire bushel of apples worked all day, walked up to the line, and some kid. And I won’t use his full name now, because we found him, and took the bushel from her and claimed them as his own. And his name was Frank. I’m going to call him Frank Ruffey, okay? Well, my mom told, you know, my daughter at the time, this story, and myself, and I was appalled.

Back in the glory days of the Internet, you could find everybody. You could find old girlfriends, you could find Frank Ruffey, get his phone number in Nebraska, and he was still alive. I called his house, my dad lived right there, when he moved in with the Perrys. Anyways, I called Frank Ruffey, and a woman answered, and I said, put Frank on, and asked him, hey, how’s it going? Remember how you stole the apples from Mary Rita in 1945? What was 75 cents, your 75 cents plus interest? And at first, he’s like, what are you talking about? Who is this? And I said, Frank, you know, you did it.

You like stealing from little girls, make you feel like a big man? Anyways, we should have had my family friend John Brown go visit him for collection time. But anyways, the guy stayed in the phone, and the guy hemmed and hawed, admitted it, wouldn’t admit it, but he did. He was a degenerate that stole apples for that, and we always thought it would be great to go collect 75 cents interest since 1945. So my mother was the middle child. I think three or four kids after her, three, three after her. No, two after her, Aunt Sally and the youngest, my Uncle Larry, who’s still with us, who gave me the guy to tour the city.

Anyways, my grandmother was telling my mother what a hoodlum. I love that term. My father was, and that he was no good. And that night, my father was at a local bar tavern, having a few belts, and came out to his car and found two gentlemen trying to steal his car. My father was a welterweight boxer who made quick work of these people. The cops pulled up and didn’t want to hear the story about two guys laid out in the sidewalk that my father had made quick work with. And again, there’s a great story that I’ll tell you some other time.

I pulled on the private channel, but I’ll tell you guys sometime on this. So my dad gets hauled into and gets basically arrested. They didn’t believe that these guys were going to steal his car, and that they were in much worse shape than he was. So he goes to the Omaha City Jail, and he was sitting there in an elevator. They were going to take him to the second floor for processing, and my dad was not cuffed. And he said, I will never forget, the fat jailer had this big thing of keys with one of those recoiling things, and got in his tippy toes to turn the elevator, and my dad punched his way up.

Okay? Made quick work of that guy. And then, this is the 50s. Goes back and walks back to his car, and the keys were stuck in the visor of his car, the one that was going to be stolen. Guys were gone, everything like that. So he takes off, and as my grandmother is telling my mother what a hoodlum my father is, they’re on the radio, there was an all-points bulletin for Edward Steven, and they’re looking for my dad, okay? And it was the greatest story ever, because it was great to hear how bad my grandmother thought my dad was, and he’s such a good guy, he’s such a good guy.

And anyways, my dad said I didn’t want to spend a night in jail. So the cops catch him, take him to processing, and he goes in front of a judge, and the judge says, I’m going to find you right now. Now think about it, he punched his way out of that place. Now he punched his way out of that place, and today, I mean, it’d be different in a different world. They find him, $25, my dad said I had $50 to my name, so it was a great day, a great day. So he got out of that.

But again, stories that make up your youth and your parents tell you stuff like this. So, you know, they got married, my mom was 18, my dad was 21, and I just think it’s crazy to think about this neighborhood with all its rich history, and all the great stories I heard as a kid. And I’m glad, glad I came back, glad I saw this. So I hope you guys enjoyed this. It was something a little different, and I had a thousand stories of my parents and stuff. It was just a different time back then, guys.

I mean, all, you know, growing up dirt poor shaved everything. It really did, it really, really did. And my dad went to California to make money, took my sister before my brothers were born, and my brothers were all born here in California, or in California, I’m in Omaha right now. Just a wild, wild story, but, you know, 2101 Pierce Street. Okay. Anyways, hit the like button. Please subscribe to the channel. I have a thousand little stories. Did your dad punch his way out of a jail like mine? Oh, I’m the product of a broken home.

What do you expect? Anyways, let me know what you think, and onward and upward, guys. I’ll see you very soon. [tr:trw].

See more of I Allegedly on their Public Channel and the MPN I Allegedly channel.