Tag: Coming of age

• Shipyard Scars at Sixteen

  At sixteen, Richard M. Dell’Orfano worked in an East Boston shipyard where danger, steel, and sweat forged resilience that modern comfort no longer demands of young men.

  RMDell’Orfano

  May 26, 2026

  Autobio

  American culture, Civilian Conservation Corps, Coming of age, discipline, East Boston, hard work, hardship, industrial labor, masculinity crisis, memoir excerpt, moral equivalent of war, Path Perilous, Peace Corps, physical reality, resilience, shipyard labor, William James, working class, young men

• The Rock of Ages

  3. Among broken pedestals on Mt. Hood, I sensed for the first time that life’s story stretched far beyond my own—a childhood glimpse of eternity.

  RMDell’Orfano

  August 31, 2025

  Autobio

  Childhood memory, Coming of age, Leap of Faith, Melrose, Mt Hood, MtHood, orgotten ruins, Rock of Ages