“The result of your constant urging. I hope you’re happy now.”

So wrote this Washington resident to me.

Enclosed in the big brown envelope were many pages of what he titled “Things I Remember.”

He explains in the first two paragraphs that “I’m writing this for my sons, mainly to give them something so they can try to understand a little about things I remember that shaped my life, and indirectly theirs. There is nothing earthshaking about any part of my life, although there are things that I think are of interest and should be recorded, if for no other reason than my belief that they are worth telling.

“I’ve lived a long and interesting life. At least I think so. I’ll try to keep things more or less in their proper order. Looking back now, it’s odd just which things come to mind…”

Thus begins the autobiographical journey of Anthony Weichel.

The Beginning: “Lister Avenue – 1933 … (following a description of the apartment his family lived in) on the other side of our apartment was a cellar room with the electrics for the building. Each apartment had its fuse box and meter with all the needed wires and cables in that cellar room. There was a door and one window in the room. When I say window, I mean window frame, which was all that was left. My sister and I had strict orders to ‘STAY OUT OF THE METER ROOM.’

“If I didn’t mention it before, my sister had her own priorities when it came to things in general. Well, one day, after much goading and double-daring from one of the boys who lived in an upstairs apartment, through the window frame my sister climbed and dropped about four feet to the floor of the meter room. No one was going to dare her and get away with it.

“Now, however, she had a little problem. At about three and a half years old, she was not quite tall enough to manage the task of exiting the cellar. Try as she might, the window was too high and the door to the cellar was locked, as one would expect, in order to keep intruders out. After a few attempts, she recognized her plight and called for help.

“The upstairs boys, aware of the taboo, wanted no part of her predicament. So it fell to me, her brother, to do his duty. Through the open window I went and dropped to the floor, gave her a boost up, and out the window she went.

“Before I could even begin to climb back through the window, I heard the cry of my sister, “MAMA, MAMA, SONNY’S IN THE CELLAR!”

All of us, surely, have stories to tell about our life’s journey.

Anthony (“Sonny”) Weichel has many.

His sons are fortunate he has told them.