Lit Hub
I was born and raised in Chelsea, an urban enclave just across the water from Boston. A city always receiving the latest wave of immigrants. My grandfather, Irish, dropped out of school to join the navy in World War II. In his eighties he finally received an honorary high school diploma from the government—far too late for it to make a difference in his life. The bitterness in his voice as he grumbled about this hurt my heart—a stoic man who worked a factory job till he retired, if he’d ever had dreams about a better life, I’d never heard about them.