Alfred Joseph Balin Junior was born July 17, 1935, in Ellsworth, Kan. It was the midst of the Great Depression and his family was in the middle of the Dust Bowl, yet he doesn’t recall hardship of deprivation. On the contrary, he felt thankful for all his family had because he saw how much worse other families struggled. He was an only child, but had cousins and step family that extended his family. He would have been 80 years old this year and was dreading the “big party” that surely would have happened this July. When his father, Alfred Joseph Senior died, he immediately dropped the “Junior”; he may have done that because he hated the nickname of “Junior” when he was growing up. He didn’t mind being called Al, honey, “Hey You” or anything else, just not “Junior”.
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