But They’re Good Boys!
A Memoir of Mayhem, Missteps, and Mildly Illegal Shenanigans
by
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Chapter 1: Umbrellas Can’t Shield You From Your Own Stupidity By Jonathan Whelan One important thing you need to know about my dad: the man is frugal. Always has been. He came from humble beginnings and worked hard for every dollar he earned. But times have changed. These days, it’s all tap-to-pay and credit cards—money feels less like something you have and more like something you pretend to have. Regardless, Dad has always kept a keen eye on his income to expenditure ratio. As Dad himself would confess, when it comes to spending, he’s “tighter than a photo finish.” Which brings us to his cars. A brand-new vehicle? Not a chance. Every car he owned was used—usually deeply used—and each came with its own set of quirks and complications. That’s why our driveway looked like either a bottom-tier used car lot or a top-tier junkyard. To offset inevitable breakdowns, Dad employed his favorite tactic: redundancy beyond reason. Why buy one decent lawnmower when you could have four unreliable ones that took longer to start than to mow with? The same logic applied to personal transportation. At any given time, five or six vehicles sat rusting in the driveway, each one a testament to Dad’s iron grip on his wallet. With that image in mind—welcome to Eddie Whelan’s Used Car Emporium—we arrive at the fateful day this story unfolds. In all my 18 years living under his roof, I can remember only one instance when Dad bought a brand-new car. And this was that day. For some unknown reason, he bit the bullet and rolled into the driveway with a sparkling new Buick Century. Now, it wasn’t a luxury car by any stretch, but in our house? It may as well have been a Lamborghini Diablo. Dad was beaming with pride. And unfortunately for him, so were his three delinquent sons—because to us, it wasn’t transportation. It was a brand-new toy. I don’t even think it was a weekend, but that night, Dad hosted a group of friends and family to play a card game that only the Whelans know: Buck Pitch. And by Whelans, I mean the Baby Boomer generation. Once they kick the bucket, that game goes extinct. But I digress. This gathering gave Dad the perfect excuse to show off the new Buick—and gave us the perfect excuse to be unsupervised. As I’ve said, not ideal. And if you’re sensing disaster brewing, you’re right. Let’s continue. The day was a textbook example of the Swiss cheese model that was developed by Dr. James Reason and is commonly used in aviation to explain how mishaps occur. In short, each slice of cheese represents a layer of defense against disaster, but each slice has holes. If the holes line up, bad things happen. The mitigation strategy in aviation is to employ enough cheese slices (with perhaps fewer holes) to minimize likelihood of alignment. Well, Dad wasn’t an aviator nor did he give a hoot about Dr. Reasons or his confounded queso model. Dad’s cheese was quite holey, it turns out and they aligned perfectly this day. First hole: Dad bought a new car. What the hell was he thinking?! Second hole: he invited people over and left his snarling pack of hyenas (a.k.a. us) unsupervised. Again, what the hell was he thinking?!! Third hole: he had sired said hyenas in the first place. WHAT THE HELL WAS HE THINKING!? Should’ve kept it in his pants! Final hole: it started to rain. That last part might explain why Dad is now so neurotic about weather. Forced outside by the crowd of adults, we entertained ourselves the usual way: disappearing into the woods, beating each other with sticks, wreaking havoc on nature. Ideal, really. But then the skies opened up. Normally, that would’ve delighted us. Not this day. For some reason, we sought shelter. The house was out—too many old people. The shed, 50 yards away, was too far. So where did we go? You guessed it. Right into Dad’s brand-new Buick. Jodie, the ringleader of our chaos circus, took the driver’s seat. George rode shotgun. I climbed in the back. The rain poured. The seats smelled like "new car." And then George, rooting around under the front seat, produces a push button, telescoping umbrella. Score! Now, a reasonable child might think: Sweet, let’s use this to get back outside without getting soaked. But you’ve met us. We were not reasonable. We were hyenas. We were Ricky Bobby’s children from Talladega Nights, screaming “ANARCHY!” while spraying our grandpa with a hose. We did not use tools for their intended purpose. So, there’s George, umbrella in hand, the hamster in his brain sprinting on its wheel. Then the wheel stops. Not because he had a good idea. Because the worst idea imaginable had fully formed. He looks over at Jodie and asks: “I wonder if this will crack the windshield.” Reader, it did. With a satisfying click, he extended the umbrella’s telescoping handle—SMACK!—and in less than eight hours of ownership, Dad’s brand-new car now had a fully spiderwebbed windshield. “Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit! Dad’s gonna kill me!” Probably. But thankfully for George, sitting beside him was the Devil’s own project manager: Jodie. Jodie, the second oldest, never had anyone pick on him—our oldest brother David was ten years his senior. But with just two years between George and him, and four between me and him, he had both the authority and the interest to torment us. George and I got along fine when he wasn’t around. But with Jodie in the mix, the dynamic changed. He’d either pick on one of us with the help of the other or pit us against each other for his amusement. He even made us fight for scraps. Leftover pork chops? He’d claim two and make us fight for the third. Sinister genius.
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About the Book
There’s a silence that falls over a house when the kids have done something unspeakable. The air gets heavy, like even the walls are holding their breath. And somewhere—maybe in the garage or behind the barn—there’s a grown man staring at the horizon, wondering what mistake in his life led to this exact moment. For Jonathan and David Whelan, that man was their father, Eddie Whelan. The Whelans are a family in which bruises are badges of honor, broken objects have stories behind them, and loyalty runs thicker than blood. Growing up Whelan was loud, chaotic, and occasionally lifethreatening. Through all the madness, one phrase echoed louder than any reprimand or scolding: “But they’re good boys.” Their father would say it like a mantra whenever his sons caused a scene or property damage, with the weary hope that someday they might live up to the compliment. This book isn’t just about the pranks and punches. It’s about what it meant to grow up with brothers who were your worst enemies and best friends, surviving a childhood that, on paper, reads more like a police report than a coming-of-age story.
About the Author
Jonathan and David Whelan are the bookends of a group of four rough and rowdy brothers raised in rural Kentucky. They grew up under the heavy influence of grandparents who ran a large-scale farming operation. Despite a chaotic childhood, they survived to share the stories.