I don't know if this will be redundant, but it seems necessary.
I am aware history is written by the victors. I don't claim victory and if you knew me, like I hope I know myself you would see this is just my memories, as flawed as I am and they are. Anything on this blog is how I remember it or how it was told to me. Writing about my Dad can be tough. I don't ever think I understood him. He worked and he worked and he worked. He never seemed to take time off except in the early seventies when he came upstate for a few days. We all thought it was the start of him having a life, it was not. It lasted maybe a second year and that was it. Oh and when he was up there, he worked.
My Dad has been gone for nearly thirty years. I was thirty-two when he died, now I'm sixty-one. I don't even remember what I used to call him. I think it was Dad, maybe occasionally Daddy, as in did you see Daddy at the trailers? He wants to talk to you. Heck, the Trailers have been gone nineteen years. For People like Denis and Billy and Cory and Ryan, who were born here and we're young when the trailers went away. To them that is all history, as in they might have no memory of the trailers behind Bill Vines' office.
I have been writing about my daughter's lives and some other thoughts on another blog and I went around at a family taco night in February 2019, asking a few people for good memories of upstate. Karl said he had few good memories of upstate or just growing up. I could understand, upstate became of the battle ground it became. I guess remembering how he and Daddy used to go at it when he'd come home from a night out with friends that can color your memories. He'd come in and sit down on the couch, an old, beautiful and uncomfortable thing we got from Aunt Emilie when she sold the farm. I believe it is upstate at Eric's now. Karl would sit down across from him, my dad in his chair and they would talk and before long they would both get angry. I would be in my bed room, two rooms over on the south east corner of the house lying in bed wishing they would stop. Fearful of what, I don't know. Nothing serious ever happened.
The front door was next to my dad's chair and he didn't go to bed early. Many times I can remember coming in late at night, him asleep with a line of cigar ash dropped onto his chest, his ever present cigar hanging from his closed mouth having gone out.
Back in the seventies, when I would deliver milk with him on Saturday morning, I would ask him to give up smoking. He would tell me to quit drinking soda and he would. I did for a week or something like that, he never quit. I think he liked smoking and like everyone else, he thought he was invincible. And like everyone else one day he was not.
The Story I heard how my dad's cancer was discovered started on his route. He was delivering to Dr King on ironically King's Hwy in Valley Cottage. Dr. King sees my dad and to him he doesn't look good. He brings him into his office in his home and checks him out. I think he is then sent for some tests which brings us to the big meeting a few weeks before Christmas 1987. I've talked about the family meeting, about the shocking news everyone knew was coming one day, but did it have to be today? Then how life went on. Life is a funny thing. When something big happens, good or bad, life continues to go on. The Winter of 1987-88 was just another winter. From the way the words were said I remember feeling my Dad's cancer was beyond cureable, but my mom who did the talking didn't come out and say that, so it wasn't true. She said it had spread, but he was going for Chemo.I don't remember when the first helper started with my Dad or who it was. Maybe it was Bob Schrader, a guy who became a friend during the eighties and early 90's until he and his girlfriend Keri moved to North Carolina. I find it interesting my Dad in his time of need would hire an alcoholic. Maybe it was just the type of job offered that bought in that level of person. Bob was not a bad guy, he could be very charming and nice. He was just an alcoholic. I remember my Dad saying he never caught Bob drinking on the job, but he could smell it. Years later another Alcoholic I knew, Gina, would tell me that when you drink so much alcohol your body reeks of it even though you shower every day and Bob reeked.
Around 1987 or so I'd bought a boat. I was in my late twenties, I worked for my Dad and I'd opened a video store recently. A Customer, Jim Derivan, who became a friend, along with another customer, Fred Roland, who also became a friend, would get me interested again in fishing.
When I was a kid, my Dad occasionally would take us fishing. I only remember the time I fell in the lake going fishing with him. Plus being a kid in pre-tight ass Rockland, kids did things like go fishing. We'd fish the Hackensack River down off Louise Drive. Head straight down Klein Avenue into the development toward the Thruway. At the bottom of Klein you'd make a right toward the river, that is where we fished. I don't know if you can even get there now. Last time I went down there in the 1990's I went through some tall grass and picked a small handful of ticks off me later that afternoon. Back then there wasn't a tick problem and there was a well worn path to the river. That was one place you got into mischief back then.
My Dad never talked much about his childhood. I never asked him either. Well that's not entirely true. After he was diagnosed with cancer and he was in bed near the end of his life, I asked to interview him and He agreed. I set myself up in the doorway to his bedroom, I had a video camera going and I start asking my questions. I start at the beginning, asking him where he was born and who were his friends growing up. About this point He says he is tired and could we do this at another time, it never happened, he died a few weeks later. I had waited too long. By even starting the interview, I had to admit to myself that he was going to die soon.
My Dad died on a Saturday night. I've told the story before in other blog posts, so I'll repost it here.
Near the end the Cancer had spread from his lungs to his brain and everyone knew it was the end.
He spent most of his time in bed until one Saturday he got up and went to his chair. He sat in it all Saturday and Sunday.
Everyone who was local came by to talk to him. That Monday he was back in bed. During those two days I thought he had rallied and might be OK for a while. Watching Someone die is never easy and you always think it is not going to happen today, but eventually the day does come. On Monday morning my Dad stayed in bed and didn't get out. I started interviewing him about his life, but I'd waited too long, After about ten minutes he asked if we could do this some other time. A Time that would never come. He lasted through to Saturday. That night, I needed to get out, so I went down to the Deer Head Inn on Western Highway. A Couple of Beers into the evening the bartender calls me and he says I have a phone call. It's my Mom and she says very simply she thinks my Dad has died. I remember going home and standing in the living room, off to the side as Lou Lafasciano, a lifelong neighbor and another man come into the house.They move anything that would stop them from getting my Dad's body out. Lou Lafasciano asks anyone in the house at that time to leave. I feel a hot flash of anger, the first of many over the next few years and I mumble to myself there is no way he is getting me out of my house. I needed to see this. All these years later all I remember is how wide open the living room was and that I was asked to leave. I know I saw my Dad's body leave, I think they used a gurney and his body was covered. But I still needed to be there.
He spent most of his time in bed until one Saturday he got up and went to his chair. He sat in it all Saturday and Sunday.
A Few Days later We went to Joe Sorce's funeral home, down the street and into his basement to a dug out area to look at caskets. He guides us to a mid-range priced casket, thank you. The Funeral was a few days after that. Before the wake started I bought in my video camera and took a quick video. I panned past the flowers and him, it took all of a minute. I didn't want people to see me doing it. I thought people in the past did it, why shouldn't I. That Video and the interview video, I think I have lost.
My Dad was born in 1922, September. I have a feeling that his parents really didn't want to be with each other, or maybe the drinking my grandfather was doing makes it seem that way through the haze and very limited stories I've heard about them. I only have one about my grandmother. really two I guess if you consider the one about her death to be true. Are any of them true?
The first Story about my grandmother Theresa, called Tessie by her family was told to me by my Aunt Doris. I was talking to her over the phone one night. I called her to ask about her life growing up in West Nyack and about her brothers, and specifically my Father. The one story I got after her saying she didn't remember much was during the depression her brother, Kenny and her accompanied their mother to the Hackensack River over behind Benson Ave so she could wash some clothes. Kenny is swimming, diving into the water when it is time to go. Kenny says just one more time and jumps in cutting his foot on something at the bottom of the river.
The Story about Tessie's death if true is really a sad one. This one comes from my cousin, Harriet. It was the depression and they were living up in a camp house next to Joe's brother Willie, having lost the house on Klein. The Story goes that Tessie is pregnant and has a miscarriage. She starts to bleed and Joe, I guess drunk (yes I'm trying to understand this story too and give a little context) says the only way someone is going to the hospital is if they are dead.
Harriett knew our grandfather. She tells a story about him living in Nyack in a second floor Apartment, leaning out the window and telling Harriett to catch, then spitting tobacco juice at her from his chaw. So Harriet has little love for this troubled man. A Man, who after giving up drinking seems to be trying to make up for the past with his new girlfriend's grandchildren. At least in the home movies I've seen that is what it looks like.
Another Story about my grandfather comes from my Aunt Elsie, who was around from at least the early forties. Her Version is Ken confronted his father about his drinking and said he has to stop or he'd be committed. Another Version is it was my Dad and Uncle Ken who confront him.
I found a notice in The Journal News, a paid notice by my grandfather,declaring any debts public or private owed by his wife Lottie, he was no longer responsible for. This was how people started to get a divorce in the fifties, I guess things between them had gotten pretty bad too. They did get back together. Either way he stopped drinking in the early fifties.
Sometime around 1957, it was discovered he had cancer. I was told by my mother he started drinking again. He went to a hospital in Massachusetts for treatment where he died. My Mom knew him from about 1952 until his death in 1958. She always said he was a gentleman to her. Both Joe and his brother Willie were alway very nice to her. I was named after him, Joseph and my other grandfather, Milton, both big drinkers.
I don't know what my Dad's first jobs were. I only know he got a job at Krug Baking company in New Jersey. He was in a relationship with a girl around this time, whom I heard he wanted to marry and I get the impression she broke his heart. Until my Mother came along Uncle Ken and Aunt Elsie thought he was always going to be a bachelor.
My Dad was drafted in 1942. I have all the information about his career in the Army. I have his draft notice, where he was to report and the different camps he was in before he went over to Europe.
He reported to the draft board in New York City on 16 Nov 1942. He did basic training in Arkansas at Camp Rucker. He spent some time at Camp Crowther in North Dakota at a radio tech school and he also spent some time in Florida. He shipped out for England, as part of the Black Panthers 66th Division, 262nd Unit in the fall of 1944. He is in Dorchester, England for about a month. On Christmas day 1944 he boards one of two ships crossing the English Channel to Cherbourg France. Upon arrival it is learned the other ship, The Leopoldville was torpedoed and sunk, 748 lives are lost. The Black Panthers are sent to St. Nazaire, France area to relieve the soldiers trapping a German Army there. Sometime during the siege of St. Nazaire they capture a german soldier.
In one of the few brief stories about the war my dad told me he said they never turned him in. I have a picture of a german soldier and
some German Army insignias I think are from him. After St. Nazaire is liberated and the war in Europe is won, my dad goes to the south of France to help set up a camp preparing
soldiers to be transferred to the Pacific. Winning the war in Europe and being transferred to the Pacific always seemed cruel to me. After the war in the Pacific is won the Black Panthers are demobilized. Soldiers with enough points for service are sent home. My dad a low pointer is transferred to the Rainbow division and does guard duty in Austria. He guards the famous Lipizzaner Stallions possibly in Wimsbach Austria. Around this time he thinks about visiting relatives in Germany. He then decides it is not really the best time. I wish he'd gone. Maybe they would not have been angry, maybe they would of been pleased to see their American relative. I have a picture of my dad I think was taken in Rome. I guess he did do a little sightseeing while over in Europe. He just never talked about it.
Uncle Willie supposedly kept in touch with the relatives back in Germany until Hitler asked all Germans with relatives in America to write to them to send them money. This supposedly happened in the thirties. Uncle Willie cuts them off. Uncle Willie dies in the fifties and no one know where the relatives lived now. No one was interested back then.
My Dad is in the Army until 1947 when he is shipped back to America and he goes to Fort Dix in New Jersey. He separates from the Army and goes back to his job at Krug Baking Company.
While making a deliver in Sparkill New York sometime around 1950 he meets a tall dark haired women of about 18, my mom Cornelia. I have bben told on their first date, her cousin, Wally goes along. .
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My Dad was born in 1922, September. I have a feeling that his parents really didn't want to be with each other, or maybe the drinking my grandfather was doing makes it seem that way through the haze and very limited stories I've heard about them. I only have one about my grandmother. really two I guess if you consider the one about her death to be true. Are any of them true?
The first Story about my grandmother Theresa, called Tessie by her family was told to me by my Aunt Doris. I was talking to her over the phone one night. I called her to ask about her life growing up in West Nyack and about her brothers, and specifically my Father. The one story I got after her saying she didn't remember much was during the depression her brother, Kenny and her accompanied their mother to the Hackensack River over behind Benson Ave so she could wash some clothes. Kenny is swimming, diving into the water when it is time to go. Kenny says just one more time and jumps in cutting his foot on something at the bottom of the river.
The Story about Tessie's death if true is really a sad one. This one comes from my cousin, Harriet. It was the depression and they were living up in a camp house next to Joe's brother Willie, having lost the house on Klein. The Story goes that Tessie is pregnant and has a miscarriage. She starts to bleed and Joe, I guess drunk (yes I'm trying to understand this story too and give a little context) says the only way someone is going to the hospital is if they are dead.
Harriett knew our grandfather. She tells a story about him living in Nyack in a second floor Apartment, leaning out the window and telling Harriett to catch, then spitting tobacco juice at her from his chaw. So Harriet has little love for this troubled man. A Man, who after giving up drinking seems to be trying to make up for the past with his new girlfriend's grandchildren. At least in the home movies I've seen that is what it looks like.
Another Story about my grandfather comes from my Aunt Elsie, who was around from at least the early forties. Her Version is Ken confronted his father about his drinking and said he has to stop or he'd be committed. Another Version is it was my Dad and Uncle Ken who confront him.
I found a notice in The Journal News, a paid notice by my grandfather,declaring any debts public or private owed by his wife Lottie, he was no longer responsible for. This was how people started to get a divorce in the fifties, I guess things between them had gotten pretty bad too. They did get back together. Either way he stopped drinking in the early fifties.
Sometime around 1957, it was discovered he had cancer. I was told by my mother he started drinking again. He went to a hospital in Massachusetts for treatment where he died. My Mom knew him from about 1952 until his death in 1958. She always said he was a gentleman to her. Both Joe and his brother Willie were alway very nice to her. I was named after him, Joseph and my other grandfather, Milton, both big drinkers. I don't know what my Dad's first jobs were. I only know he got a job at Krug Baking company in New Jersey. He was in a relationship with a girl around this time, whom I heard he wanted to marry and I get the impression she broke his heart. Until my Mother came along Uncle Ken and Aunt Elsie thought he was always going to be a bachelor.
My Dad was drafted in 1942. I have all the information about his career in the Army. I have his draft notice, where he was to report and the different camps he was in before he went over to Europe.
He reported to the draft board in New York City on 16 Nov 1942. He did basic training in Arkansas at Camp Rucker. He spent some time at Camp Crowther in North Dakota at a radio tech school and he also spent some time in Florida. He shipped out for England, as part of the Black Panthers 66th Division, 262nd Unit in the fall of 1944. He is in Dorchester, England for about a month. On Christmas day 1944 he boards one of two ships crossing the English Channel to Cherbourg France. Upon arrival it is learned the other ship, The Leopoldville was torpedoed and sunk, 748 lives are lost. The Black Panthers are sent to St. Nazaire, France area to relieve the soldiers trapping a German Army there. Sometime during the siege of St. Nazaire they capture a german soldier.
In one of the few brief stories about the war my dad told me he said they never turned him in. I have a picture of a german soldier and
My Dad is in the Army until 1947 when he is shipped back to America and he goes to Fort Dix in New Jersey. He separates from the Army and goes back to his job at Krug Baking Company.
While making a deliver in Sparkill New York sometime around 1950 he meets a tall dark haired women of about 18, my mom Cornelia. I have bben told on their first date, her cousin, Wally goes along. .
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