MY FATHER

This is a tribute to my father.

MY FATHER

My father was not a savvy businessman, evidently. He had no training to be one. He spent sixteen years living in rural England, where he worked for a farmer delivering eggs and milk to the county-folk before he immigrated to America in 1910. Here, he found employment in New York City as a Borden’s milk deliveryman. This career ended when his horse ran wild after being spooked, crashing into an elevated subway column, killing itself and injuring him.

He worked at the nearby Hoboken shipyards during WW I. When Prohibition became the law, my mother and he began to make home brew. From bathtub gin and a small clientele, he wound up as the proprietor of a small hole-in-the-wall saloon located in Hoboken near the terminus of the ferry and rail commuter service to New York. The bar thrived, thanks to the thirst of his customers, primarily rail workers. The person who actually owned the property provided him with all the ingredients needed to make beer on the premises.

I never saw this place, but assume it had the status of a “speakeasy.”

 With the end of prohibition, my father decided to open his own tavern, called the Liberty Bar. My mother cooked free lunch foods for the customers. She brought me there a few times. On one occasion, at age six, my head got stuck in the open framework of a wicker chair. I howled, thinking it would be my fate to live forever with this piece of furniture around my neck.

My father leased the space for this tavern from an unscrupulous building owner who, cunningly, arranged to have the liquor license made out in his name. My father spent a considerable amount of money to refurbish the bar. A year or so later, the owner refused to renew the lease, forcing my father out of business.

At the same time, my father invested most of his savings in a local business, the National Casket Company. Its owner, Tobey Monger, used the money to pay off some debts, and then declared bankruptcy. My father lost every cent he had.

In 1934 he then went to work for the Works Progress Association (W.P.A.), one of the agencies created by newly elected President F. D. Roosevelt to stimulate the economy. A few years later, he went back to work on the docks, shaping up daily as a stevedore as depicted in the movie, On the Waterfront. Since my mother was at work in Manhattan, and as my grade school had no luncheon facilities, my father came home at noon to make our lunch. We had the same meal virtually every day: bacon, eggs, and home-fries. On Friday’s, we had Manhattan clam chowder, purchased from the deli across the street from our apartment.

In 1940, he broke his left leg when a pallet of beans fell on him while unloading cargo for the Maxwell House coffee plant. It didn’t heal properly. Unable to work as a dockhand, he became a bartender, an occupation he continued working at until he was 83. All during those years, he worked six days a week, ten hours a day.

Those noontime lunches we shared kept him strong. It didn’t make my body grow much, but it worked wonders for my mind. After all these years, the memory of those meals and the time we spent together remains vivid. My dad was indeed a very big man whose demeanor masked the pain of those tough economic times.

We never did bond, however. His long hours of work left him with little opportunity to spend time with me. I was studious and athletic. He was neither. My brother acted more like a father to me. He heard my lessons, took me with him to sporting events, museums, college glee club productions, and explained the birds and bees to me one day, Jesuit style, beautifully incomprehensible.

For a few years in the mid '30's, after he lost his savings, my father drank excessively. It was a difficult period of life for my family and especially burdensome for my mother. Their arguments were monumental, and frightened me on some occasions.

Despite living with my parents until 1954, I did not interact much with my father. When I left home in 1954 to move to California, we had not spoken about anything of consequence in years. He was proud of me, I could tell. I had graduated from college, was gainfully employed by a large company, and appeared to be a clean-cut regular guy. He knew I would not have to work at hard menial jobs, as had been his lot in life.

My father was my mother's special target. She never seemed to be able to forgive him for his behavior after he went broke. She found fault with him all the time, and constantly nagged him. He became stoic, and accepted her condemnation. She would not allow him to stop working. She reasoned it was better for him to be standing behind the bar rather than loafing in front of it. It made sense. He loved the pub atmosphere of any of Hoboken's two hundred fifty saloons

My father never counseled me, nor advised me on any matter, until the day before I got married. Then, he asked me to take a walk with him, a very unusual request. During our stroll, he asked, "Do you love Angie?"

"Yes."

"Then take care of her," was his only comment, ending our discussion.

My father was very cognizant of his appearance. He always wore white shirts that my mother starched and ironed to perfection. He had a heavy beard, which he shaved below the skin line. On his day off, he would put on his one and only suit, and then stroll down

Washington St.

with stops at the bank and a number of his favorite bars. He always wore a felt fedora hat. He smoked White Owl cigars, chewing them mostly. He had large hands, which made cigarette smoking seem out of place for him.

As he aged, he drank less and less, settling for an occasional beer. In his prime, he drank rye whiskey, never any form of mixed drinks or cocktails. In Hoboken's grimy bars, there was little call for anything other than the stevedore's boilermaker or depth bombs. One is a beer with a shot of whiskey chaser; the other made by dropping the shot glass of whiskey into the glass of beer, consuming both liquids with one swig. I was never man enough to belly up to a bar to order either.

My most pleasant memory of my father is that of the four days I spent with him after my mother died in 1961. He told me he once had an English girlfriend named Ann. Mostly, he talked about how much he loved my mother. I got to hear him tell about his love of dancing, and heard him reflect about life. I grew to love and respect him so much because of this visit.

He lived the last five years of his life with my sister, in White Plains. To the very end, he loved to take a taxi to the nearest saloon, just to hobnob with the clientele. He would have hated to visit me in California, living as I did in the wilds of suburbia, not one bar in sight.

For all his drinking, he was not a carouser or a family disgrace. He just loved the camaraderie of men and liquor. He was never profane, crude or indecent in any way. He rarely went to church, due to working every Sunday morning. Yet when my sister was pregnant with her first child, he visited church every afternoon to pray for a healthy grandchild.

He left me with many memories, few possessions. I have his straight edged razor and his pearl tiepin, only a few pictures. My most prized objects are the dozen or so letters he wrote after my mother died. When I showed them to my sister one day, she was smitten. She had never received a letter from either of our parents, and had no idea they were such wonderful correspondents.

I think of my father as a man's man, an unassuming man, a gentle man, a decent person, who held no one in disrespect. He even liked the English, unheard of among his Irish peers. He had spent the prime of his life in England, and saw things differently as a result.

While in college, from time to time, I would spot my father walking home from work across the college campus. It was one way he could share my experience without imposing himself.

I pray there is saloon up in heaven. I hope my father is there, waiting to buy the next round. If not, he may be sewing some holy garments for the Angels. He learned to be a tailor at some point in his life. According to my brother, he bought a Singer sewing machine for my mother. A salesman delivered it, and started teaching her how to operate it when my father came home. He tossed the man out the door, and then sat down and taught my mother. She was shocked, unaware of his tailoring background.

Is this a true story? Would my big brother lie? I know my father would not. He was a humble and honest person who made me proud to be his son.

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MY MOTHER

This is a tribute to my mother.

MY MOTHER

My mother died December 3, 1961 in St. Mary Hospital, Hoboken, New Jersey, while I was living in San Mateo, California. Her death filled me with great remorse and sadness. After moving west in 1954 and getting married in 1955, I saw her only a few times afterwards.

Angie and I went to New York in the summer of 1957 six months after our first child, Jamie, was born. Holding our new infant delighted my mother beyond description. Angie, on the other hand, was petrified when my mother placed Jamie on the fire-escape landing to allow her to enjoy a breath of good old Hoboken air. It saddened me to return to California, wondering when we would meet again.

The next time was in 1961, six months before she died. Angie and I brought our four children, then ages 1, 2, 3, and 5 for a short visit. At the time, she marveled at Angie's motherhood skills. The memory of that delightful time gave me some solace.

When news reached me of her death, memories flooded my mind. The earliest one brought me back to early childhood. My mother read nursery rhymes to me virtually every night with a beautiful, lilting Irish brogue. By the time I entered first grade at age 5, she had taught me to read. It was her greatest gift to me.

She spoiled me in many ways. As an example, she catered to my very picky appetite, cutting away every bit of fat from my meat. In season, she squeezed fresh orange juice for me daily. Loose coins jingled in my pockets all the time. I never lacked for her love and affection

She rarely asked me to help around the house beyond cleaning the windows or polishing the dining room furniture a time or two. She saved all the money I had sent home from my days in the service, and would not accept any money for living expenses during all the years I had lived under my parent’s roof.

During the depression years, my family encountered financial problems. My father lost his savings, forcing my mother to find work as a lunch-time waitress at the exclusive Whitehall Club, near Battery Park, whose members were associated with the maritime industry. To reach the dining area, waitresses had to carry trays of food down a flight of stairs. It was a difficult job, but she performed it for years without complaint. Out of necessity, my mother gave me a great deal of freedom while growing up, a latchkey kid, but I never got into any trouble and never gave her any heartache. She trusted me implicitly, another great gift.

She took great pride in my school grades, always commenting favorably while signing my report cards. It did not seem to matter to her that I attended public high school instead of a Catholic parochial institution as had my siblings. Although she attended Mass every Sunday, she was not what I would call a very pious Catholic. Our home did not contain religious pictures or objects to indicate our faith.

Since she didn’t start work until mid-morning, she had time to prepare breakfast for me every work day. She arrived home around four, in time to make dinner, usually delicious but simple meals: broiled meats, boiled potatoes, string beans, carrots, peas or corn. Invariably, she would bring home a roll or two from the Whitehall Club.

We did not share too many experiences away from home. We sometimes went to The Bronx by subway to visit her sisters, Margaret Magner and Helen Heneghan. A subway could take us to one or the other relatives, but not both. As a youngster, the walk from one to see the other seemed interminable. Once, I boarded a subway train and she failed to get on. I got off at the next station and took a train back. She had the good sense to remain at the station, thinking I would do this. It made me so angry at the time. I was about twelve.

She loved to use Pond’s Lotion to soothe her hands. I can see her still, seated in front of the TV, watching all the great shows that aired in the early ‘50’s.

Her primary social life centered on playing bridge with a few friends at the church hall. At other times, she played bridge with my sister Helen, her husband, Joe Schmitz, and me. She had minimal skill, but loved the time we spent together.            

Her real passion was gambling on the ponies. For years, she placed small bets with a bookie near Wall Street. She and her friends would pool their pennies to make up a two-dollar minimum wager. If the nag won, she had to do all the bookkeeping to split the pot.

Regrettably, she never told me anything about herself. She never talked to me about her Irish upbringing or her early life. What’s worse, I never asked. It took years before others shed some light on this subject for me.

Mother wrote me many letters while I was in California. After she died, I shared copies of them with my sister, Helen, who had no idea she could write so prolifically and beautifully. I treasure them while mourning her.

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PAUL CORNELL

This friend holds a special place in my memory and a song in my heart. 1/12017

PAUL CORNELL

It is a wonderful thing to make a friend at any age. Paul and I became good and close friends late in our lives. We met in 1993 when Paul attended my “Reminiscence Writing” class. He died in an assisted living home in Scottsdale on February 15, 2007 from complications arising from a heart attack, a stroke, and a fall that broke a bone in his leg. I attended his burial service conducted at the Phoenix National Veterans Cemetery.

Paul’s life had more twists and turns than do most. He grew up on a farm in Rockville Center, some twenty five miles from Manhattan. Despite this proximity to New York, his residence had no indoor toilet.

Only sixteen when WW II began, Paul hoped it would last long enough for him to enlist in the service. He joined the navy when he turned seventeen, and served in the South Pacific.

After the war ended, he obtained his high school diploma, and then attended Wagner College. While an undergraduate, he earned money by boxing. He entered and won a Golden Gloves competition. He went on to obtain a law degree from Brooklyn Law School, although he never passed the Bar.

Soon after graduation, he entered a two-year sales training program with the American Can Company. At its completion, he married a New York City lady, fathered two girls, and moved to Chicago. His unfaithful wife divorced him, got custody of their children, married his co-worker, and moved back to NYC. He did not see his children again until they were adults.

After his divorce, Paul decided to move to California. He proposed marriage to Donna, a woman he met at a square dance. She said, “No,” but changed her mind at the last minute. In San Francisco, and in desperate need of a car and a job, he left Donna at the motel, took a cab to a used car lot to buy a vehicle. In a remarkable turn of events, the owner gave him one to drive back to the motel and hired him to start work the next day as a salesman. This is how things happened in Paul’s amazing life.

Over the years, Paul had thirty different occupations. He earned virtually nothing working as a Long Island farm boy, six-figures as a mutual fund sales manager. At the end of his working days, he had dropped back to the low end of the pay spectrum.

While working in the seed industry in Los Angeles, he founded the Preservation of Big Band Music Society. His collection of vinyl records numbered in the thousands. He became a disc jockey for a local Phoenix radio station for a few years, pretending to be broadcasting from the Starlight Room. He fooled many listeners into thinking his fictional dance emporium existed.

After completing my Reminiscence Writing class, he advertised himself as a Personal Historian, offering to help other people write and publish their memoirs. He completed one beautiful tribute project for the daughter of a quadriplegic mother who defied the odds by living an exceptionally long and fruitful life.

He lived near Scottsdale’s Chaparral Park and spent many hours there. He decided to turn this interest into something useful and tangible. Over a period of months, he stopped and talked to individuals who strolled by, asking their permission to photograph and interview them to determine what they liked about the park. He published a book containing these pictures and vignettes and donated it to the City. Officials of the Parks and Recreation Department formally accepted it at a press conference, and awarded him a certificate of appreciation. Taking this sort of initiative typified Paul’s entrepreneurial approach to life.

Paul and Donna had three children, two boys and a girl. His oldest son left home as a young man and did not surface for over ten years. Paul had no explanation for this, except to say his son did not like moving from one place to another while growing up. His daughter married a local newspaper executive. His other son lives and works in Sacramento.

Paul and I often lunched together, sometimes in the company of Al, Angie’s brother whom Paul always addressed by his naval rank, “Chief.” They loved to swap war stories. Paul told us of the time his ship stopped at a tiny island where the inhabitants thanked his captain for helping rid them or their enemy, presenting him with a bag filled with the skulls of Japanese soldiers they had killed.

He told me the greatest war story I ever heard. In August 1945, a typhoon struck Okinawa, threatening to sink his ship, a destroyer escort, at its dock. The captain managed to put out to sea, after taking three hundred soldiers aboard. The storm lasted for days, making everyone sick, including the captain. Only a handful of seamen were able-bodied enough to keep the vessel afloat. The ship rolled from side to side to such a degree that the radar dome, acting as a scoop, filling it with water. Paul said that two of the bravest individuals he ever saw managed to climb the mast holding the dome and using acetylene torches, burned it off. When the storm ended, the ship had lost all power and radio contact. It drifted helplessly.

This is where the yarn gets good. They continued to bob around the ocean for days. He said they heard a noise and in disbelief saw a Japanese submarine rise from the depths ready to send his disabled craft to the bottom of the ocean. Then, the Japanese sub hoisted a white flag of surrender! Paul had no idea we had bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and that the war had ended. Incredibly, the Japanese sub towed his ship back to Okinawa.

Paul converted many of his albums to audio cassettes for me. While recovering from hip surgery, he gave me two sets, one called, Joe’s Girlfriends. Beginning with the tune, Angelina, every song is titled with a girl’s name. The other set contains music whose titles include the names of all fifty states, from Maine to Hawaii.

Listening to the music on these cassettes will remind me of Paul, a dear friend whose memory I will always treasure, especially when I go dancing at his Starlight Room.

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DONNIE FLECHTNER

I wrote this story about my boyhood chum, hoping to pay some small homage to his memory. 12/30/2016

DONNIE FLECHTNER

My friend Donnie died in 1974 at age forty-six. I read his very brief obituary in my Stevens alumni magazine six months afterwards. It provided few details. The news stunned me. He had been one of my best teen-age pals.

   We started high school together in 1940. He had the honor of being the youngest member of the class, only twelve years old, and sported a baby face to prove it. We shared the same homeroom, took the identical curriculum, and sat next to each other in virtually every class. We were members of the Junior Varsity high school basketball team and spent many hours playing sandlot baseball. We were members of many of the same high school clubs and both appeared in the senior play.

Donnie’s Jewish parents raised their only son to value education. His mother taught fifth grade public school and his father worked as either an engineer or a technician. Donnie made the Honor Roll every semester. It came as no surprise to me when Donnie finished second in the Stevens competitive examination and won a full four-year scholarship.

We began our college days together on July 1, 1944. He had broken his ankle a month earlier, sliding into second base. He started school using crutches. I carried all his books and his engineering tools, from slide rule to T-square, to every class. We sat next to each other in each one. He settled into the college routine immediately and began demonstrating his superior intellect and engineering acumen. I floundered badly.

The school had adopted a tri-semester program in order to graduate students more quickly. Four months later, we entered the second semester of our first year. Four months later, we began our sophomore year. At its conclusion, I dropped out of school to await military induction. Donnie's age allowed him to avoid the draft. He continued college at the same pace. He earned a degree as a Mechanical Engineer in 1947 at age 18. That same year I reentered school as a sophomore.

We had joined different fraternities whose houses were directly across the street from each other. As a result, we would often see each other at Saturday night parties. On one occasion, his date left him to join me at my fraternity house party. This made me feel very awkward.

He continued with his education and obtained a Master’s degree in 1949. Only 20 years of age, he found it difficult to obtain a suitable job. He worked at a lab performing routine mundane tasks.

In 1950, he joined the Air Force as a commissioned officer at the onset of the Korean “Police Action,” stationed at Wright Field, Ohio. I never saw him again afterwards.

Recently, I re-read his obituary. It indicated that at the time of his death he resided in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. On a whim, I called information and obtained a phone listing under his name. I dialed it, not knowing what to expect. The woman who answered turned out to be Donnie’s widow. The alumni obituary failed to make note that he had married.

After introducing myself, she talked with me for an hour, describing her life with Donnie. After he returned from military duty, RCA hired him to work at their Trenton, NJ facility. He rose to a top management position that imposed tremendous stress on him. Their first son, born mentally retarded, never matured beyond age two, and currently lived in a nearby institution. In contrast, their other son attended Stevens as an undergraduate, and later on served there as a professor. Talk about extremes in the fortunes of life.

She told me that Donnie's mother had lived with her until just last year, when she succumbed at age 94, in full possession of her faculties.

Then she knocked me for a loop. Donnie's employer, RCA, decided to scale back its workforce, and eliminated his position. He stayed on with the firm in a much lower engineering position. The stress became too much for him to bear. He committed suicide.

Donnie’s life had ended tragically. I cried after I hung up.

Jeez, Donnie. No job is worth it, you know?

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BILL LIEVE

In this story, I describe what happened to an old friend, a man born in Hoboken who graduated from college with me. 12/31/2016

BILL LIEVE

Death takes the fun out of life, no kidding. A few days ago, while glancing over the obituary column in my college alumni magazine, I saw the name, Bill Lieve. He had died six months earlier. I could not have been more shocked.

Bill and I were both born in a special birthing facility operated by two physicians, Drs. Spahr and Fath, he a few years before me. He attended St. Peter’s Prep in Jersey City where he excelled in both athletics and academics. Standing six feet tall, he made an imposing figure, having curly hair, a great smile, and a captivating personality.

In college, he personified the Big Man on Campus All-American stereotype, a B+ student who seemed to get high grades without effort, a member of all the important clubs and organizations, a fraternity party animal, and an outstanding ball player. He lettered in soccer, basketball and lacrosse whose teammates named him captain of all three teams in his senior year.

He left college in spectacular style. First, he married a gorgeous looking girl from my high school, the Senior Beauty Queen. Then, General Electric hired him to undertake a two year training program at a salary far above the norm.

After graduation, our paths did not cross for thirty years. During this time, he rose to become one of GE’s six regional Sales Managers, well known and respected throughout the utility industry. We met a conference when I visited GE’s hospitality suite he hosted. His wife and I had a grand reunion, although some of his coworkers thought she was dallying with me. One thing struck me about my friends: I found it impossible to match their ability to consume scotch.

We continued meeting at this annual convention for the next several years. He and his wife entertained all the big utility executives in his sales territory. They had the world by the tail.

            A few years later, in the late ‘80s, many large firms began to scale back their workforces. GE summarily severed my friend, shocking and embittering him. With the passage of time, he adjusted. He and his wife wintered in Florida, spending the other six months in a southern New Jersey beachside community. They took many trips to Ireland with their four children and other relatives. He had both knees replaced that allowed him to continue playing golf at their country clubs.

After getting over the shock or reading his obituary, I phoned his widow to express my regret and to find out what happened to him. She said, “We had been out shopping and he walked up to me, cigar in mouth, and asked ‘Where do you want to go eat?’ and he fell over dead, victim of a massive heart attack.”           

 His death saddened me, made me cry. To think I had envied him at one time. He seemed to have all the cards . . . intelligence, appearance, personality, success by every measure.

I enjoyed being in his company all through college. We often sang I Was Born in Hoboken when we met up at fraternity parties. How could such a vibrant man have died at such a young age?

I must have had the better doctor when we were born.

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REN CROUCH

This story commemorates a treasured college pal. 1/1/2017

REN CROUCH

I am writing this story with a heavy heart. I feel blue. While visiting Angie’s relatives in Florida this past January, I had an emotional reunion with an old college chum who lives in Largo, just north of Tampa.

My friend, Rene DeGourcey Goodman Crouch, is as unique as his name that derived from an English father and French mother. They sent their teen age son to Baltimore to live with relatives when Germany began bombing London. After graduating from high school, the Royal Navy called him into their service. He spent his military years pleasantly sailing all around the Indian Ocean. He returned to the United States and enrolled at Stevens Institute of Technology in 1947. I met him when he joined my fraternity,

He stood out from the crowd. At age twenty-two, women ignored his bald pate, adoring his cosmopolitan charm. What woman could resist a man with that name of his? He could speak some French, mumble words in ersatz German, sing an endless repertoire of lewd songs and out drink everyone in my crowd. Ren became the editor of his class yearbook, a member of all the important academic societies, easily wearing the unassuming mantle of the proverbial Big Man on Campus. When I think of him now, the words urbane, witty and charming come to mind.

A few years after graduating I attended Ren’s marriage to a very lovely girl from Annapolis. They produced three daughters. His and his family lived in Largo, Florida, where he could satisfy his lifetime love of sailing. We did not meet up again until 1979 when his employer sent him to Phoenix in the capacity of Project Manager overseeing the addition to Sky Harbor Airport Terminal 3. The demands of that job limited our time to socialize. His family hated Arizona, so he arranged to transfer back to Largo less than a year later.

I drove a rental car from Ft. Lauderdale to Largo to see Ren. I found him beset by misfortune. His wife had died of cancer a few years earlier, and his middle daughter committed suicide shortly afterwards. His oldest daughter had married a Mormon physician, moved to Idaho and never keeps in touch with him. At the time of my visit, his youngest unmarried daughter had moved in to live with him while her broken leg healed.

That evening, I found Ren to be as affable, funny and entertaining as ever, but his body trembled as he suffers from a rare nerve disorder. It left him with a loss of muscle control of one side of his face, affecting his speech. He could hardly put pen to paper, or drink from a glass or cup without spilling.

His home looked out upon the Gulf. “What a fantastic view this room provides.”

“Do you like it? I designed it myself to replace the one a tornado destroyed in 1991.”

Aside from these minor mishaps, things were going well for my old friend.

We sat up all night regaling each other with memories of our happy college days. His daughter sat up with us.

“Ren, she reminds me of my daughter, Ellen.” A few drinks later, I phoned Ellen in San Jose to tell her this news. Ren got a big kick of the fact that I could relate to his daughter. We all had a wonderful evening. I found it difficult to bid him farewell the next day, realizing we would not meet again.
            My alumni magazine reported Ren’s death a few years later. The obituary contained few details. I tried to contact the daughter I had met on my visit to learn more about the circumstances, but she had moved and left no forwarding address. Ren passed out of my life without fanfare, but left a huge pain in my heart.

I am both sad and astonished that my life has been spared the misfortunes that seem to beset many others. Somebody up there loves me. .

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FRED AND ISABEL WEIR

The Weir's were old friends who met untimely deaths. 12/31/2016

FRED AND ISABEL WEIR

   This story is a sad one. Angie’s longtime friendship with Isabel came to an unhappy and unexpected ending. They met while working for the Foster Wheeler Corporation in Manhattan not long after the end of WW II. Over the years, they vacationed at Sun Valley, Idaho; Jackson Hole, Wyoming; the Great Smokey Mountains in Tennessee; and Havana, Cuba. They were a couple of swimsuit beauties back then.

FWC hired seventeen year old Fred in 1949 as a mail boy. He and Isabel fell madly in love despite their five year age difference. In 1950, Fred enlisted in the Marines and saw combat duty during the Korean War. After his discharge from military duty, he found a job operating a printing press for a small family owned publishing company in Manhattan plant and married Isabel. Impressed by his magnetic persona, the company owners offered him a chance to sell their printing services. Soon Fred began earning ten times what college graduates were making at the time. He and Isabel moved to a beautiful home in Long Island. They had two children, Kathy and Fred Jr.

His sales success continued. The owners made him a partner in the firm. Later on, he opened his own printing company located in Yonkers. Confident his business would flourish, he borrowed millions of dollars to pay for German-made four-color printing presses. His business thrived for a number of years, during which time he made a great deal of money. Then, conditions changed. He faced strong competition from around the country while saddled with a Printer’s Union contract that forced him to pay some of his unskilled workforce wages in excess of $100,000 a year. His company lost money three years running and his personal assets were in jeopardy. When the Business Manager refused to allow the Union to vote on a new contract, Fred shut the doors and quit the business, putting many people out of work.

Years earlier, their daughter, Kathy, had moved to Arizona. She became a highly paid sales executive for the Xerox Corporation and later by Hewlett-Packard. She and her husband, Tim McFarland, had three boys. Fred and Isabel purchased land in Scottsdale on which to build a retirement home.

The Weir’s had a brilliant son, Fred Jr., who graduated from Rochester Polytechnic Institute. He settled in New York City, working for one of the major network television studios. He helped produce an award winning film of the Winter Olympics in Calgary. His wife, a native of Buffalo, hated the New York City area. She moved back to Buffalo to be near her parents. He bought a plane, learned to fly, and commuted there to see her on weekends. He finally gave in, quit his job, moved to Buffalo and began working for the State Department. The government put him in charge of a computer program to track Canadian immigration data.

Fred entertained lavishly during his business years. He thought nothing of providing his clients with expensive Broadway theater tickets or paying for vacation fishing trips to Florida. Over the years, Isabel became an ardent and proficient angler. They often vacationed at Montauk Point, Long Island to fish. Other times, they spent weekends in Princeton, at a ritzy but cozy inn. They enjoyed spending weekends at one of the fine New York hotels, taking in a show or two while dining in the most upscale restaurant they could find. Fred rode a limo to work. Isabel stayed at home, but had a Cadillac to drive should she need to go out. Could life be better?

After he quit his business, they moved to Scottsdale into the retirement home they had built on their property. We saw them a number of times at their swanky house, situated on one acre, complete with pool. Isabel cooked gourmet dishes. It suited their tastes. Whenever we dined with them, Isabel would prepare some special appetizers. They were wine connoisseurs, whose dinner selection they placed on ice in a silver bucket. The utilized only the finest crystal and china whenever we dined with them. Afterwards, we would sit in their family room in front of a fire, drinking and talking for hours. Fred, an avid reader, always had the latest book at hand, ready to discuss it or any other subject that might come to mind. Classical or operatic music would be heard in the background.

Fred had a trademark laugh, a booming bellow. It rocked the room. Angie recalls how he embarrassed her by shouting out her name while on the subway one evening.

I liked Fred and Isabel quite a lot. However, we could not reciprocate their lavish hospitality. Nor could we afford to take them to dinner. They would only eat at expensive places far beyond our budget. Their wealth had created too big a gap for us to enjoy their company. Their conversations always led back to the fact they had dough-re-mi. They just could not help themselves, I guess. As an example, they made a point of saying, while touring Vienna, they purchased the best seats in the house to see an opera on New Year’s Eve, followed by dinner at a five-star restaurant where the wine cost more than the national debt.

A wide gulf now separated our lifestyles. We stopped seeing each other. Our close friendship deteriorated into sending perfunctory Christmas cards.

In 1999, we met them by accident in Sedona. They went there specifically to dine at some fancy place that served the best trout in the world. We said we would join them, our treat. We had planned to have just some simple lunch, probably a hamburger somewhere, but that did not match their style.

As it turned out, the restaurant did not have the fish on the menu, so they had to settle for something mundane. During the luncheon, they dropped a bombshell of information on us. They said that Kathy divorced Tim. Her decision devastated them. The irony did not escape s as Fred and Isabel had frequently criticized other divorced relatives of theirs.

We were surprised at how old and weak Isabel looked. She had emphysema, a result of her lifelong smoking habit. Fred, on the other hand, looked the picture of health. We parted without expressing any plans to meet again. As it turned out, we never saw either of them afterwards.

In 2000 Isabel sent us a Christmas card postmarked Buffalo. We phoned her son and left a message. We wanted to know why his father’s name did not appear on the card.  He never returned the call.

Time went by. In June 2001, we called Tim, Kathy’s divorced husband. He said Fred had died some time ago, and suggested we call Kathy to get the details. This news knocked our socks off.

When we spoke to Kathy, she told us that her father entered St. Luke’s hospital in March 1999 for a problem related to his back. He went home after receiving some treatment, but had to return when the condition worsened. Complications set in, and he died in the hospital of a pulmonary embolism on Memorial Day. She arranged to inter his ashes in a Veteran’s Cemetery in Long Island, near where they once lived.

She then went on to say that her mother moved to Buffalo to live with Fred Jr. Shortly after Christmas, Isabel’s health had deteriorated rapidly and she showed signs of dementia. Kathy said her mother suffered a stroke and died in January of this year. Again, the news flabbergasted us. Kathy relayed this information without emotion. She said she was sorry we did not know that her father had died. She assumed her mother had informed us of this fact, or we had seen his obituary.

This litany of sad news depressed Angie who would have liked to talk with Isabel one more time. She regrets that Isabel had not told us of Fred’s death. Had she done so, Angie might have been able to comfort her. It amazed us that neither Kathy nor Fred Jr., thought to call us when their father died.

Fred and Isabel were inseparable soul mates, made for each other. They enjoyed each other’s company immensely. They were proud parents of two very gifted children, extremely successful in business, and knew how to enjoy life. They deserved a better ending.

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