He would have been 100 today. He has been gone for 31 years (he didn’t even make it to 70, almost but not quite). We had a very interesting 41 years together. We had our ups and downs as most relationships of any kind have over that period of time but the nadirs are, even with the blessings of hindsight, far, far fewer than the zeniths.

He was born the son of a NYC police detective, his mom died after he was born and he and his father had a very fractured relationship, at least as it was related to me over the years. He didn’t talk much about it, and only would answer questions I asked with very short replies. I got that he didn’t want to talk about it and rarely probed more than a few questions. The one story that still both intrigues and haunts me is this one: He enlisted in the Navy when WW2 broke out and was stationed on a Destroyer Escort, he sent the majority of his pay home during the war as he really had no use for it on the ship that was constantly moving. When he was discharged after it was all over, he went to the address he remembered only to find that his father (who had remarried after his mom passed way back) had moved and left no forwarding address, taking with him all the money that was sent back from his time at sea. He was able to track him down with the help of his older sister Alice, but it would be years (well after I was born) before there was any renewed contact.

His options were limited, even back then, as he had dropped out of school to join the Navy. He took a job as a bus driver for NYC and that became his life path. If you’ve ever seen the movie A Bronx Tale, one of the routes he drove was the one ending on City Island, the exact same as Chazz Palminteri’s father drove in the movie (for all I know they knew each other but I never got the chance to ask him as the movie was released about two weeks before he passed and he was already in hospice care at that point). I would occasionally ride with him and I do have vivid memories of going to the same place at the end of City Island that Chazz’s at the end of his route and having ice cream as he cleaned his bus out before returning it to the garage.

He never made a lot of money, he was a bus driver and then a dispatcher (the next level up), but we never seemed to be hurting. Christmas and birthdays were gift showers, far more than was necessary. I was taken to my first Yankee game and allowed to pick out one souvenir, I chose a Yogi Berra pin that I still have. We swam together, he taught me how to throw and catch, I taught him about golf when I was introduced to it at 13 by a friend. We took small, local, vacations and when I was 14 he took us to Far Rockaway to visit a friend of his who summered there, we all fell in love with it and he immediately rented a bungalow from Vic Santini (yes, one of the seven brothers) for the rest of that summer and we then became residents of the working man’s riviera for the next 10 years. All the while he drove into work every day along with my mom, so my sister and I could escape to the ocean.

He always suggested I would love a city “union” job and it would be good for me, but he never once put any pressure on me and when I expressed a desire to go to college and look for something else both he and my mom were fully supportive. They managed to pay for my undergrad degree in full and gave me the freedom to follow my own, at that time very unsure, path. When I was offered an excellent position at the NSA after graduation, the offer was made in Sept of 1970, and I turned it down (the thought of working in Washington in the Nixon era was too much to take), my Navy veteran father was disappointed but never said anything more than “are you sure about that” when I gave him my decision.

When I had children of my own, he was always “there”. He would stalk the latest, hard to get toys for Christmas. for us. When we bought our first home in 1989, he drove up, spent multiple nights sleeping on the floor and painted the entire inside of the house so I wouldn’t have to take time off from teaching or pay someone to do it.

He finally fulfilled his own dream of owning a property when he and my mom purchased a condo in Vermont. After Far Rockaway was no longer viable, they started spending time in Quechee, VT where my mom’s sister and her husband had bought a home in the mid 70’s and ultimately found something they liked. He never got to spend a single night there as he had contracted lung cancer from years of smoking and working in asbestos laden garages and it went long undiagnosed due to sub standard health care. By the time a responsible doctor found it, it was far too late and it was only about 9 months from that diagnosis until he passed.

The last time we had together was a Saturday afternoon in the home in Trumbull, CT that he had lovingly painted for us. It was 4 years later, and my wife, mom and both kids went to the local mall. My dad, who was by that time on portable oxygen, and I took a long walk around the neighborhood and when we got back just talked for what seemed like hours about everything and nothing. The good news is there was nothing left unsaid, the bad news is that about a week later he had a mini stroke and was moved to Calvary Hospice care in the Bronx where he was totally uncommunicative.

I had just visited him at Calvary on an early October afternoon just before the Columbus Day holiday weekend, he was still uncommunicative and as I was leaving I held his hand and said “Dad, it’s ok to go, we’ll miss you but everyone will be ok”. Later that night the phone rang and when I answered I was gobsmacked…it was him, just as lucid as if it was 30 years earlier. We spoke for about 10 minutes and then he said he was getting tired and needed to call my sister. I told him I loved him and we hung up.

About 5 hours later the phone rang again, and it was Calvary calling to tell me that he had passed. I’m not making that up and that’s not a figment of my imagination, that is what actually happened. I called my mom to tell her (I had asked that they call me first), and that I would pick her up and we’d go together to see him and provide the information to Calvary for the arrangements.

The next morning, as I was driving to the funeral home to finalize things, on my car radio came Bruce Sprinsteen’s song “Walk Like A Man” To this day, some 31 years later, I can’t get past the first few notes without tearing up…I think it a great place to end this, along with the fact that I miss you dad…

Here he is with me and the one time I met his dad…

I remember how rough your hand felt on mine
On my wedding day
And the tears cried on my shoulder
I couldn’t turn away
Well so much has happened to me
That I don’t understand
All I can think of is being five years old following behind you at the beach
Tracing your footprints in the sand
Trying to walk like a man

By our Lady Of The Roses
We lived in the shadow of the elms
I remember ma draggin’ me and my sister up the street to the church
Whenever she heard those wedding bells
Well would they ever look so happy again
The handsome groom and his bride
As they stepped into that long black limousine
For their mystery ride
Well tonight you step away from me
And alone at the alter I stand
And as I watch my bride coming down the aisle I pray
For the strength to walk like a man

Well now the years have gone and I’ve grown
From that seed you’ve sown
But I didn’t think there’d be so many steps
I’d have to learn on my own
Well I was young and I didn’t know what to do
When I saw your best steps stolen away from you
Now I’ll do what I can
I’ll walk like a man
And I’ll keep on walkin’