The man lived until his 89th year and I never saw him cry until near the end. I will get to that later.

Some kids never experience the love for their daddy as this little boy called me did. I can remember playing catch outside with my two pals Roy Edelstein and Johnny Molinari right before dinnertime. We were little five year olds, the ‘ Children of Howdy Doody’, and diehard Brooklyn Dodger fans. What did we really know about Dem Bums at that age after all? Yet, we had our little baseball gloves on as we tossed the Spalding ball back and forth. Suddenly, as if on cue, my daddy appeared, coming home from his job on the Brooklyn docks. I tossed the ball to him and he to Roy and Johnny and back to me. Then, magically, my two friends were called to dinner by their moms and I had my daddy all to myself. What memories.

I can remember, as if yesterday, of sitting on his lap as we watched the Friday Night Fights together on our little black and white television. He would let me wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him, as he kissed me. God, I loved my daddy! On Sundays, after church, right before the Giant game came on the TV, my daddy would be grating the parmesan cheese for dinner. I would watch him scientifically fold a napkin and place the cheese grater ever so carefully over it as he patiently grated what would go on top of our Sunday rigatoni smothered in gravy (we never referred to tomato sauce as sauce, always gravy). I would wait until he was finished to get my treat, which was a small piece of cheese ready to satisfy my taste buds.

When I must have been six my daddy finagled it to get me into the Davey Crockett Little League. Technically I was too young to be allowed on a team, but my daddy, being a part time bookmaker, had the league president as a customer. Enough said. My daddy would take me and my older brother to the games every Saturday, with me swimming in a uniform. They placed me in right field that first year so as to keep me away from the action. When the games ended my daddy would take us to the burger place, sometimes along with some of my brother’s teammates.

When I reached the age of eight my daddy often took me to the horse racetrack with him, so I was able to enjoy that atmosphere. Nothing smelled better than the mixture of horse manure and disinfectant as we entered the back end of the track. He bought me a program and we sat up in the grandstand seats eating the sandwiches my mom made for us. Perhaps it was the future writer in me that captured the sights and sounds of the racetrack atmosphere in my memory bank. It was just me and him for those five hours each time.

Who was this man, this daddy? Why did he have dentures, even when I was a babe? He told me one day how he got periodontal infection as a young boy, and had all his teeth pulled. I did not find out about what happened to his own father until I was in college. Finding out that my grandfather had blown his brains out during the Great Depression when he was blacklisted from his craft for being arrested during a labor strike that became a riot. I wondered if my daddy had cried when my grandmother found the body lying in the blood filled bathtub. He wouldn’t tell me. Years earlier, when his father lost his job and could not even get on home relief, did my daddy cry when he had to drop out of Brooklyn College ( as an A student) to get a shitty job, and resort to eating banana sandwiches?

After WW2 did my daddy cry when his used car business partner forged his name on a loan and ran off leaving my daddy to file bankruptcy , losing all credit for years? Did he cry when he had to beg his father in law to get him a job as a longshoreman? If not, then how long would that water stay stored in his eye ducts? Perhaps, in 1962, when his mother, who lived with us, fell and broke her hip and remained a half cripple from then on, I never saw my daddy cry. He just sucked it all up and went on as her ‘ Only child’. Twenty years later when my grandma died I still never saw him cry, at the funeral parlor or the gravesite.

Finally, in 2004 my mom passed away after a horrific situation whereupon I had to give the orders to cut off her legs from the knee down due to gangrene. This was after my parents had been married for 64 years. When my wife and I went to the nursing home to tell him the fatal news, he was waiting for us in the lobby of the nursing home in his wheelchair. I had to lean over to speak into his hearing aid and he looked the same forlorn look as when his own mother had passed away. My wife held his hand as I told him the sad news. When he heard the news it was as if a pump valve just opened up in his head. The water flowed continuously from his tired eyes onto his chest and lap as my daddy cried like a baby! After comforting him for a long time my wife and I left the nursing home. I was crying too, like a baby, and said that this was the first time I ever saw my daddy cry.

PA Farruggio
August 2024