My father is a retired police chief, as was his father, and his father before him. My mother was not a civil servant but her father and his father before him were, as was all her brothers. The Delaney Family has been here just as long if not longer than any blue-bloods can claim. We are a large Irish-American family, I have cousins out the wazoo and they have provided my grandparents with great-grandchildren that, well, makes our family look like overly horny-rabbits that do nothing but reproduce. Fortunately, me and my baby brother are the only two within our own immediate family. However, when I think back I am saddened to remember that both my mother and brother almost did not make it when he was born, when I was only 10 years old. I remember being very frightened that my mother had to stay in the hospital’s ICU and I was not allowed to go see her for nearly a week. But, when my baby brother came home cradled safely in her arms and they both were breaming with such radiant happiness, I could not help falling in-love with that little bundle of joy. I swore to protect and love him above all else and with everything I had.

We are a close-knit family, but poor. Dad worked double-shifts 6 days a week a lot of the time and mom worked as a maid for one of the Omega blue-bloods that always were mean and spiteful towards her. While I was still a child I learned to cook, clean, and took care of my baby brother while they slaved away at their nose-to-the-grindstone jobs just to make ends-meet. Eventually, as I got older and was able to have a lemonade stand and later mow lawns that was when my parents started to teach me about budgeting, they’d have me pay rent and my share of the utilities. I am sure it made life a little easier for all of us, but I can tell you I did resent having to live a life of practical destitution. I was allowed to save a quarter of what I earned via my lawn mowing services, lemonade stand, and rewards my parents gave me for my grades. When I got to be around 12 years old I was beginning to hang around a neighborhood mechanic shoppe, where the old man and his sons were well known through out the city. They, too, were from a long family line of mechanics, iron workers, and other such handy-men careers. Their entire family were good friends with my entire family, some were married to Delaneys. Well, anyway, I got to go and hang-out at the shoppe a lot and eventually I was intrigued by the workings of engines. Car engines, motorcycle engines, lawn mower engines, and eventually I started to learn how they worked. They let me work their in the afternoons after school, when I was not mowing lawns and running my lemonade stand nor taking care of the house, I would go into the shoppe and actually work on cars and motorcycles. On the weekends, I got to go and learn to dirt bike; so when I turned 14 it was no wonder that I had bought a used, beat up motorcycle that was donated for parts and I started to fix up 6 months before my birthday. It was an old street racing cycle and by the time I had it street worthy again, it was beautiful and purring like a kitten.