HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!

-->

-->

Everyone knew Tony. He was a devoted son, hard-working father and husband, usually with a wry sense of humor. He could play tricks on my mom as well as his children. He was after all: Dad.

He couldn’t wear a tie for more than 3 minutes, and usually when he left for a wedding or special occasion, his tie was loosened enough to look like he worked all night. When you took him into a church, you never wanted to sit next to him, because he got restless, spread his legs out and shifted his eyes to the movements of the parishioners, being a few seconds behind every one else. He was Tony.

But God forbid, you needed help, anything, he was there. Many a time he would recruit me and off we’d go to do some chore for an older person or a widow who couldn’t afford to get something done, Tony did it out of the goodness of his heart.

Pay Tony with a cup of coffee and he was paid, no money needed, and he already had his satisfaction of doing something for someone.

A family man? There was no greater family man than Dad, gathering up his kids and family and anyone who needed a family holiday, and on Christmas Eve, his favorite holiday, he was in Heaven, and surrounded by all that meant the most to him. There was not one grandchild that didn’t love Grandpa, and he loved tham all the same, especially his first-born grandchild. Every month for a year we had to have a cake and sing Happy Birthday to her.

Tony was well organized, he ran a shipping department with his innovations that got his company shipping out on schedule, organized the stock room and supervised a crew of both full and part time workers. They all loved him, and he loved them back. But that was to say: Today is Sunday, so today is Sunday. Just a simple man, not too complicated, he loved life too much to bother with drama.

He lived and died for his Mets, always a rooter of the underdogs, no matter how much of a dog the underdog was. He loved his sister Angie, and she loved him too, calling when she was living in Florida and he was on his death-bed, they talked and I knew then he could now let go.

His mother died just six months after, attended his funeral and his wife died 22 years later one day to the exact date. Mom passed on June 11, and Dad on June 12.

But Tony was also a teacher. I was his only student and usually the most important lesson was to be happy, work harder than anyone else and be charitable. That was Tony, and that is his legacy.

Peace Dad. I hope that where you are there is no pain, no sorrow and joyous sunlight to warm your loving heart and compliment your disposition, because although you are gone for many years now, that it all still lives on.

Love: your only son.

GOODBYE!

Saying goodbye is very hard to do. Writing everyday was hard, and often I didn’t really have a thought about what to say, and some days I had too much to say.

The sad part is I will miss writing to you everyday, and the urge will still be with me. But life is like that: sometimes we need to change our course, our minds change, our philosophies change and our will changes.

There are no rivers, or mountains or seas that could have separated us over the last 9 years, because everyday I wrote I knew where to find you, your heart was always in the same place.

Soon I will have a new challenge, my daughter’s agency has asked me to once again take the title of President of the Board of Directors, and a $70 million plus agency will need my full attention. The people it serves deserve the full attention of all who serve them, the staff and the volunteers and so it is I not cheat them, they are most important to me, and so my heart must change.

I am lucky to have had a cadre of readers who did follow everyday, and for that I truly love you, but my heart has changed and now it is time to say Arrivederci cari lettori, or Auf Wiedersehen liebe Leser, or just plain Goodbye Dear Readers.

But there is one caveat to my departure, I will leave the blogue open and on occasion write to it, but never again with the same consistency of a daily dose. Writing seems to be in my blood and that can’t be denied entirely, and this is the best way to continue that.

So thank you for reading, maybe I’ll see you soon.

I REMEMBER IT WELL!

-->

Actually a college photo, but close

Before there was a McDonalds, Burger King or Checkers, there was a Ricky’s, the original hamburger takeout.

In my senior year in high school, since we operated on a split session due to a horrific fire that destroyed the old Bellport High School, at noon Benny the ‘Buffer’ Gallinaro, Ernie ‘Butch’ Mancuso and myself would hop into Benny’s car and drive over to Patchogue and eat lunch at Ricky’s Hamburger place. Situated on Sunrise Highway not too far from Seton Hall High School, we feasted for very little even for those days 51 years ago. There was the ‘Buffer’ and there was ‘Butch’ and there was me, “I’m hungry”.

A cheeseburger costs 20¢ and a hamburger 15¢, with fries and a soda or milkshake it came to under $2.00! That was a great deal!

From there we would go over to Seton Hall and try to find Benny’s cousin, a young lady whose name escapes me now, but who was cute as a button and looking to fix me up with her friend, who I never met but went to Seton Hall along with her.

Benny came from Brooklyn and was hanging with the wrong crowd. He was a good kid, and very generous, but had the mentality of a street fighter. His dad decided to take him away from the influence of the streets of Brooklyn and try his luck on the lawns of Bellport, East Patchogue and Hagerman, or wherever he might land. Fortunately for Benny he had an aunt who owned a factory in Bellport in a strip mall across from the Bellport Train Station where they manufactured clothing for children, and so Benny played out his senior year in Bellport.

What happened to Ricky's

But Ricky’s was the go to place for kids in those days, you drive up to the building that had no parking lot but you parked up against the building in the sandy grass, walked up to a window, ordered and usually took the food to your car to eat. This was when I was still 120 pounds soaking wet, and hadn’t discovered culinary delights of Manhattan Island working in the advertising world.

But Ricky’s one day disappeared, going the way of so many businesses when the chain stores and eateries came along, replacing the small businesses with a wider array of choices and who operated from Breakfast to late supper time.

But I miss not only those days, but also the little mom and pop stores and eateries, that sense of personalization with the establishment was replaced by the cold impersonal relationship of convenience and commercialism that reigns today.

Too bad!

If there are hopeless fools, then there should also be fools, which give hope.

http://www.ahrcsuffolk.org/

LOOKING FOR GREAT GIFT IDEAS FOR YOUR CHILDREN OR GRANDCHILDREN?

http://www.ebeanstalk.com/?store=42

http://www.mountaintoptoys.com/

Address: 1231 Taft Hwy, Signal Mountain, TN 37377

Phone:(423) 886-6943

Hours: Open today · 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

DO YOU WATCH THE BIG BANG THEORY?

You should, you'll eat better!

http://forgotten-ny.com/

Forgotten NY is the first recipient of the

Outstanding NYC Website award by

The Guides Association of NYC!

pamelarae47@yahoo.com

HOW COLD WAS IT?

-->

It was as cold as the Mets bats, the wind whipping in from right center field as the sun was setting in the west. It was a rare night out with my two sons, a ballgame at Citi Field and dinner in one of the restaurants, with fancy bar service and gourmet foods, with great ambiance.

#2 Son Mike and #1 Son Anthony

Having had nothing but sisters growing up, having sons seems special. Spending time with them as children was special too, but there is nothing like it when they are both adults, suddenly you are left listening. The conversations are about current things and quite involved, and so I listen.

And so that night at Citi Field, in the end of May, we froze off our baseballs, the wind smacking your body and seeping through your clothes. Each inning passing slowly, and to make matters worst, by the end of 6 innings, the Mets were behind by a 9-0 score! How much more miserable can it be?

Watching people sitting in front of me, their bodies shook, shivering in the wind, hardly able to move their heads, and yet they stayed to watch this horrific team live up to the description. Drinking cold beer and frozen French fires, they struggled to pass the fries into their mouths!

Fortunately for us, we ate in the Delta restaurant under the stands, steak and baked macaroni, beer, and not one shiver among us until the check came.

"Doctor, I can't seem to stop my hands from shaking all the time!"

Doctor: "Do you have a drinking problem?"

"I don't think so - I usually spill half of it."

http://www.ahrcsuffolk.org/

LOOKING FOR GREAT GIFT IDEAS FOR YOUR CHILDREN OR GRANDCHILDREN?

http://www.ebeanstalk.com/?store=42

http://www.mountaintoptoys.com/

Address: 1231 Taft Hwy, Signal Mountain, TN 37377

Phone:(423) 886-6943

Hours: Open today · 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

DO YOU WATCH THE BIG BANG THEORY?

You should, you'll be hitting it big!

http://forgotten-ny.com/

Forgotten NY is the first recipient of the

Outstanding NYC Website award by

The Guides Association of NYC!

pamelarae@yahoo.com

IS IT TIME?

Recently I have been losing my enthusiasm for writing this Blogue. It has been 9 strait years of writing everyday, and although the compulsion to write is strong, I feel like I have said everything I want to say.

It seems like a motor for me to write everyday, since I retired yet, I have been busy with other things and they consume my interest yet I question how interesting it would be to you? Again, that forms a doubt in my mind about continuing to write.

Over the last few years I’ve seen and heard things that disappoint me, make me wonder why they needed to happen and get disgusted. That is not what I want to bring everyday to loyal readers.

Then there is the ‘comments’ box that doesn’t get filled enough for me to think it warrants my continuation in this format any longer, that maybe it is time to say goodbye. I have tried before  (twice) to break off this blogue and move on as they say: yet I would miss writing. But there are other formats that I could write to, including a novel I am thinking about and some short stories. My beautiful granddaughter is filling a void in my life and lifting me up yet how much of that can I write about that would hold your attention for long?

I’m proud of the blogue, I think it is unique, and was a lot of fun to write sometimes, it gives me an outlet to voice my concerns, make fun of myself and life in general and given me a unique opportunity to create a bazaar world of sorts, all in the name of fun, that had to be because I wanted it to be me first.

And so the next few days I will think about it once more, and honestly am leaning to do away with it.

MEET THE METS… MAYBE

MEET THE METS, MEET THE METS, Step right up and greet the Mets! Bring your kiddies, bring your wife; Guaranteed to have the time of your life because the Mets are really sockin' the ball; knocking those home runs over the wall! East side, West side, everybody's coming down to meet the M-E-T-S Mets of New York town! Oh, the butcher and the baker and the people on the streets, where did they go? To MEET THE METS! Oh, they're hollerin' and cheerin' and they're jumpin' in their seats, where did they go? To MEET THE METS! All the fans are true to the orange and blue, so hurry up and come on down - 'cause we've got ourselves a ball club, The Mets of New York town! Give 'em a yell! Give 'em a hand! And let 'em know your rootin' in the stand! Come on and MEET THE METS, MEET THE METS, Step right up and greet the Mets! Bring your kiddies, bring your wife; Guaranteed to have the time of your life because the Mets are really sockin' the ball; knocking those home runs over the wall! East side, West side, everybody's coming down to meet the M-E-T-S Mets of New York town! Of New York town!

In 2013, my 2 sons and I planned a trip to Chicago to watch the Mets play 2 of 3 games against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. We stayed in the heart of the city and would watch the first and third game of the three game series. The middle day we would sightsee the Toddling Town.

#1 Son knew a girl who was a former girlfriend of one of the Met players: a good ballplayer but he couldn’t break the regular lineup. He would play on occasion and pinch hit.

Sure he would get us into the clubhouse and meet the Mets as the song goes, and we would be very happy baseball fans.

We packed our bags and would meet at the Chicago O’Hare Airport and take the train to the hotel. We were excited, three days in Chicago with my sons, a tour of the city and meeting the Mets in the clubhouse!

So what happens? The stiff gets sent down to the minors because he wasn’t hitting, we had to be contented with waving at them from behind the home plate screen. But as luck would have it, after one of the games, we were taking in the restaurants and bars and sports shops with souvenirs, when all of a sudden from the corner of my eye I spot something. It’s Sandy Aulderson: General Manager of the NY Mets talking to people on the street, so I get my camera out and take his picture, with my two sons, he was very gracious. I should have stepped on his foot for sending that bum down to the minors a few days too soon!

Yo mamma be so dumb she thinks Dunkin' Donuts be a basketball team!

http://www.ahrcsuffolk.org/

LOOKING FOR GREAT GIFT IDEAS FOR YOUR CHILDREN OR GRANDCHILDREN?

http://www.ebeanstalk.com/?store=42

http://www.mountaintoptoys.com/

Address: 1231 Taft Hwy, Signal Mountain, TN 37377

Phone:(423) 886-6943

Hours: Open today · 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

DO YOU WATCH THE BIG BANG THEORY?

You should, they may be Mets fans!

http://forgotten-ny.com/

Forgotten NY is the first recipient of the

Outstanding NYC Website award by

The Guides Association of NYC!

BOY DOES THAT HURT!!!

I’ve had several root canals done on me and I can truly say they never bothered me, but the last one was an exercise in dying, suddenly!

It all started with visiting the dentist and his assessment of my teeth and the need for some bridgework. As it stands now I have more bridging and tunneling going on in my mouth than the Metropolitan Transit Association of New York City.

As the dentist Dr. Gumster probed he decided that I had a bad molar crown lower right #31 and that the nerve was exposed, causing me great shock when I ate or drank and breathed.  If you talked to me I would begin and when I started to talk would sound like I fell in love with you! This had to stop because most of my friends are married, and a great number are men!

Even worse, if I dined out, I would bite down to chew and would forget which side to protect, looking like I was stabbed in the knee, causing the waiter or waitress to run to the kitchen to report my extreme look of dismay with the food, that in turn caused the chef to come out and taste test the food.

But this time I sat in the dentist chair confident, he would do his usual work and the pain would desist, and I could get out of the place in no time. Then the needles, oh the needles! Dr. Gumster decides: One needle for the side of the gum, one for the hinge in the jaw and one of course for good luck. Sweet Baby Jesus, that wasn’t enough! He asks if I’m numb yet, this after 43 years of marriage and 3 kids, I just shake my head yes.

Never say "AH" in these chairs, it sounds stupid!

Pulling up his chair he begins poking, and I am getting the feeling that I feel something, like pain, where the nerve is exposed. I wince and he probes some more. I wince louder, he probes more and the louder I get. He decides one more needle, or maybe two would be nice.

Backing up across the room, needles in hand, he takes a running start and into my gums he stabs! RIGHT IN THE EXPOSED NERVE!!!!!!!!! OOOOOOOUUUUUCCCCHHHHH, TAKING ANOTHER NEEDLE AND STICKING IT DIRECTLY INTO THE NERVE ONCE MORE AND LEAVING IT THERE ASKING: IS THE PAIN GONE YET?

Finally, finally gum area is feeling numb, making it consistent with the rest of my body and mind. Turns out the roots were closing up exposing one of the nerves. So after about a life-time of digging and whatever it was he was doing he managed to fix the problem! Thank You God!

A lady sitting in the dentist chair told the dentist, "I would rather go through the pain of child birth than have you drill in my mouth." The dentist replied, "Well, you had better make up your mind so I can adjust my chair.

 

http://www.ahrcsuffolk.org/

LOOKING FOR GREAT GIFT IDEAS FOR YOUR CHILDREN OR GRANDCHILDREN?

http://www.ebeanstalk.com/?store=42

http://www.mountaintoptoys.com/

Address: 1231 Taft Hwy, Signal Mountain, TN 37377

Phone:(423) 886-6943

Hours: Open today · 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

DO YOU WATCH THE BIG BANG THEORY?

You should, it helps build strong bones and healthy teeth!

http://forgotten-ny.com/

Forgotten NY is the first recipient of the

Outstanding NYC Website award by

The Guides Association of NYC!

MR. JOHN T. MARKEY

-->

Sometimes you never meet people in the oddest ways!

TLW (The Little Woman) works, as you might know at the Wanna-Be-Bank & Truss Co., a credit union of note here on Long Island. My wife’s job is to sit with people who want to do car loans, boat loans and transfer money from one account to another. Sometimes she gives these “members” advice as to what to do. In that spirit she makes followers who go only to her and she builds friendships in a business way. Then at dinner she will mention a person or two in the course of her day and how she helped them and their reaction to that help. One such member was a 92 year-old man named Mr. John T. Markey.

Mr. Markey became friends with TLW, would seek her out and knew a lot about her life and she knew a lot about his life. His life was an interesting one, filled with pride for his service to this country during World War II, as a young 22-year old soldier landing on the beaches of Normandy under fire from the German coastal guns and machine and rifle fire along the beach. He indeed was a hero.

Mr. Markey asked one day about me, and my wife called with a question about World War II, which I answered correctly. She explained to me that Mr. Markey a former history teacher and war hero as he was wanted to see how much I knew about the war he fought in, and was impressed that I knew the answer.

In a subsequent visit by the gentleman, he came in with a book about the war, a  collection of cartoons: ‘Bill Mauldin’s Army’ and gave it to TLW for me to have, along with a very interesting book about FDR and the case about our fore-knowledge of Pearl Harbor and how we may have caused it to happen deliberately.

I decided to draw a cartoon in the Maulden style of two guys in a foxhole and one mentioning to the other Mr. Markey’s name about some event or happenstance of which eludes me. He loved the thank you note and sent more books.

As the time went by he would go to the Wanna-Be-Bank & Truss Company and ask how the “History Buff” was, meaning me. In one or two of those visits he would bring more books for me to read about WWII.

TLW would send birthday cards to the man and I would sign it too. One day TLW came home to tell me he was not doing well, and was in a Veteran’s home, assuming it was the one next to Stony Brook University Hospital. I decided to visit him there, maybe make it a habit of visiting him, I was retired and could afford to spend some time with the man, it would be in my mind good quality time. I called the Veteran’s Home and inquired about the visiting hours, and where I could find my friend I hadn’t met yet, and was told there was no such name listed either with the hospital or the home!

Then last week I got the awful news that Mr. Markey had passed! Mr. Markey, who I never met, the war hero who I admired, had gone off to another life: he was finished here on Earth.

So the man I admired for his bravery, his real service to America, was gone and I never met him. Sad.

REALLY!

“It’s so hot outside, a dog is chasing a cat down the street and they are walking!”

Being when I talk I like to emphasize facts to the extreme, I sometimes can get carried away with the emphasis: that is due to the fact that I am my father’s son.

When describing large amounts, such as cars on a road on a given moment, or people in an elevator, the number 40,000,000 comes out of my mouth. I’ve been doing that for all my life, and will continue t do so, so it seems. TLW (The Little Woman) pointed it out early in our marriage.

Dad had that habit and although his descriptions took on a different form, he got the same results.

One day I was eating an orange as a kid, and Dad asked:

“What’s that you’re eating?”

“An orange.”

“That’s an orange!?”

“Yeah?”

“Now when I was your age, we had orange this big!” Bring his two hands together to shape a sphere about the size of a large grapefruit.

“And that was just the pit” I added. He laughed at my compounded exaggeration and life went on.

The old story about walking to school all uphill as a child was one of his favorite to tell, yet it struck me as weird that he also walked uphill home too.

Sometimes Dad would get a side job painting someone’s home or office or billboard and take me along and he would pay slave wages, and I was grateful he was paying me at all.

“Now here is what WE have to do, he would announce to his captivated audience, his sole helper. See all the corners? I want YOU to take a broom and sweep out all the corners in the ceiling and run the broom along the edge where the ceiling meets the walls, and down the walls to the floors. Once WE are done with that then we can prime.”

Sometimes the we turned into WE, and suddenly the we are painting became the WE are painting in a hurry. He got a couple of hundred bucks, and I got five, we certainly worked hard for our money.

But Dad was no miser, no sirree, when he left me with the broom, he would run out and get a cup of coffee and bring me one back for free! I was usually done by the time he got back, so he must have traveled far for that coffee!

http://www.ahrcsuffolk.org/

LOOKING FOR GREAT GIFT IDEAS FOR YOUR CHILDREN OR GRANDCHILDREN?

http://www.ebeanstalk.com/?store=42

http://www.mountaintoptoys.com/

Address: 1231 Taft Hwy, Signal Mountain, TN 37377

Phone:(423) 886-6943

Hours: Open today · 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

DO YOU WATCH THE BIG BANG THEORY?

You should, without exaggeration it is the best show on TV!

http://forgotten-ny.com/

Forgotten NY is the first recipient of the

Outstanding NYC Website award by

The Guides Association of NYC!

http://www.nicolegregory.com/

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY

-->

When the evening shadows fall
and the lovely day is through
Then with longing I recall
the years I spent with you

Mama, I miss the days
when you were near to guide me
Mama, those happy days
when you were here beside me

Safe in the glow of your love
Sent from the heavens above
Nothing can ever replace
The warmth of your tender embrace

Oh, Mama, until the day
that we're together once more
I'll live in these memories
Until the day that we're together once more.

There are special moments that I remember so fondly, moments long ago, when life was so simple.

My mother was a good lady, perhaps stronger than anyone I ever knew except my wife.  She had a blind faith, a resolute personality, indefatigable and determined.

She didn’t particularly suffer fools, and wouldn’t entertain foolishness much, but she could laugh with the best of them, even in a dark hour, yet was very shy.

She was a creature of habit, longing for only quiet and her God, her children were taught early on that respect was important if you liked your skin, and that a wooden spoon was multipurpose: cooking wasn’t the only thing it could do. She didn’t go around pretending holiness, or preach or think she had to worry about people’s souls, just her own and her children’s. She was never a phony.

There was the time when I as her child, which one, the younger of course, for I am always her child: when she took me to church, and I learned that this would be a time of solemnity, devotion and prayer, a surrendering of yourself to God. And I put silver buttons in the collection basket and kept the two nickels my Dad had given me for the collection. She never let me forget that one. It became folklore in a manner of speaking throughout the family and with her grandchildren.Or the Sunday Mass when I placed a spider in the hair of a lady who felt the need to look down on us because we occupied a pew with her name on the pew.

There were the many times she cried over her mother, and I would cry seeing her sob, her taking me with her on a bus to Queens to St. John’s Cemetery and her mother’s grave, Grandma Mary's. She cried for her mom’s sacrifices as a young single mother with three young girls and no father, a father who deserted his family.

There was the time when she made me visit all those churches with her, on a cold afternoon and her in her fur coat, stopping for Halloween cup cakes for her kids. That moment just sticks in my mind: it wasn’t expected, we were poor!

She could bake and bake well. Making holiday cookies, cakes and pies with a love for the art. Cooking was her specialty, bringing wonderful creations to the table that we were too dumb to really appreciate until it was too late. Aunt Lena as she was called was known for her cooking by all her nieces and nephews.

I remember coming home from school, swinging open the front door and yelling: "Mom! I'm home!" Getting home from work or college in the early evening, my dinner waiting for me in the oven, the warmth of the kitchen and her presence welcoming me to where I wanted to be in all the world.

Many people lose their mother, and on Mother’s Day miss their mothers terribly, today so do I for the first time. Maybe we will be united once more-someday.

To all you who still have your mother’s give them a kiss for me, and for all those that miss their Mom today, let’s say a silent prayer that we will be reunited in the after-life. Today is mom's birthday too, she would have been 97.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY MOM, AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOO! 

 

Love, your only son.