Ah, the Train of Convention. What's Yours like?

I refer to the founding, foundering, floundering days of my upbringing as my "train of convention." Everybody gets to ride one.
It's the train where I learned how to do, be, think and believe during those malleable, horrible, joyous, momentous, and insoluble years between childhood and young adult-dom.

Mine might be very similar or drastically different from yours. The similarities may cross cultures; the differences may be starkly defined.

Sunset at 70 m.p.h. on the I-94 in eastern Montana. June 2014.

Let's see whether anyone can relate...

My parents brought 8 children onto the planet between 1955 and 1970. Truth be told, my mom gave birth to SEVEN kids in 8 years and 3 months. And then my "surprise" little brother arrived 6 years later to round out the brood. Quite a feat. I'm 4th in line.
We are American Irish. We are Catholic. Our friends are Irish and Catholic. There's lots of us, I mean like hundreds...(quiet chuckle of holy shit there were A LOT of kids running around the neighborhood!) We lived in the same house from 1959 through the early 1990s. Northern NJ, USA.
I attend Catholic school from kindergarten through undergrad diploma.

My first kiss and my first joint were on the same night. Could not've done the one without the other.

Worked. Always had a job, from 11yrs old onward. There was never a time where I could lounge on the couch, or sleep past 10 a.m. if my dad was home. Never.

My first super-proud moment: dad emptied my bank account of $1,163 (earned from a morning paper route) in order to pay all the school tuitions. He kinda sorta asked, and I knew I had no choice. Besides, I wanted to. And I'm pretty sure I didn't get repaid. Too many mouths to feed, tuitions to pay. This was 1974.

Sad sidebar. Alcohol ruined my dad. His nickname was "Buddy." In my view, anyone nicknamed Buddy has got to be a good guy. I never knew that man.

Alcohol became a staple ingredient to my social development relatively early on. It's what everybody did, some more "socially aggressive" than others. I loved it, and safely hid behind the "atta boy, good guy, ready for a cold one" male motif for a solid run of 14 years.

My convention train included a few life path choices once college was done: Wall St, doctor, lawyer, or Wall St. I chose the easiest, softest path. Donned a charcoal pin-striped suit and hit lower Manhattan. Guns and butter is what I was told, so I went with it.
Never trust a man that doesn't drink, so I didn't.
Too much drink is a good man's fault. I knew many like that. And I always handled my intake, which was voluminous.

Then I got married, according to the unspoken, unwritten guidelines of my convention train. Can you say Irish, Caucasian, wants to have a career and kids?
I chose well within the confines provided, and she did, too.

This whole gig kinda blew up in February 1989. That's another chapter for another day. Both the darkest moment and the greatest beginning.

When I think about whence I came, it both amazes and saddens me. I'm grateful for my convention train, yet also massively gratified I stepped off.

What's your train of convention?

Love to all. Lights out.