My dad died when I was nine, so my memories of my dad are not as voluminous as they are of my mom. Yet, in spite of the fact that he’s been dead forty-six years, the memories I do have are pretty vivid. My memories are almost like short little films. What I wish I had are photos, but I don’t right now. I know my sister Mamie has photos of my dad, particularly from her wedding. He gave her away at her wedding on October 14, 1962. By August 8, 1963 he was dead. Over the next few weeks, I’ll borrow some photos of my dad, scan them, and add them to Mi Famiglia and to this post.

When I was little, people would say that I was the “spitting  image” of my dad, and I was. He was a very mild mannered guy, though. I don’t consider myself mild mannered. I think my personality is much more like my mom’s. As I’ve gotten older, I think I look a bit more like my mom as well.

I used to go food shopping with my dad all the time. Since he and my mom never had their drivers licenses, he and I used to walk to the end of the street to Broadway (in Revere) and go to the Stop & Shop. I remember that it was right behind the fire station. We’d buy our food and then we’d carry all these bags  back up the street. Sometimes we’d get on the bus and go to McKinnon’s in ‘Everett. He used to say that they had fresher fish and meat. He’d also buy Eight O’Clock coffee and have it ground right at the cash register. I used to love the smell of coffee even as a kid.

Not having a car never held my dad back. I used to love the beach so much when I was small. My dad and I would take the bus to Revere Beach together. It was nothing like it is today. It was amazing. I remember the Cyclone Roller Coaster (it was awesome) and The Wild Mouse. I also remember the Hippodrome where they had the Bumper Cars (we called them the Dodge’ems) and the Flying Horses. But we didn’t spend a lot of time there because all I wanted to do was be in the ocean. I remember that the waves used to be so big back then. They’d come in and my dad would pick me up by my arms and swing me back and forth. Then, when the wave got close he’d let me go and I’d go right through it. I could do that for hours. My dad was great. He’d do whatever I wanted. If I wanted to build a giant sand castle, he’d be right there building it with  me. Then he’d take me to Kelly’s Roast Beef. When I was a kid, I was too dumb to appreciate the clams. I used to just get a roast beef sandwich. It wasn’t until I was older that I learned how awesome the clams are there, even today (I’m talking about the Revere Beach location only; the other Kelly’s restaurants are pretty mediocre, I think).

Today at work we were talking about when we were kids and the things our dads used to let us watch on TV. My boss was telling me that her mother was mortified that her dad used to let her watch Benny Hill, a really unbelievably funny British comedy. When I was young, people were disgusted by the Three Stooges. I used to love the Three Stooges (still do; I’ve downloaded every single episode). “Violent is the Word for Curly” is my favorite episode. It’s the one where this all-girl’s school mistakes the stooges for three professors, and they end up singing the song “Swinging the Alphabet.” I remember that the big topic of conversation in my neighborhood was that the kid down the street had whacked his father off the head with a hammer after watching the Three Stooges.

Apparently, however, Superman had a more profound impression on me than the Three Stooges. We lived on the third floor of an apartment building at 218 Beach Street in Revere and all of the tenants had back porches. One year I got a Superman costume for Halloween, and I was playing on the back porch. My dad grabbed me by the cape and probably saved my life just as I was about to jump off the third story porch.

On Sundays my dad and I used to go to Woodlawn Cemetary in Everett, believe it or not. ‘We’d be at my grandmother’s anyway, and it was just down the street. It’s beautiful there. The flowers were beautiful and there were plenty of benches to sit on. We’d walk through and then just spend time talking about stuff. He also took me there to teach me how to ride my bike. Like almost every other cemetary, Woodlawn had an “old” and a “new” section. Some of the stuff in the old section, like statues of angels,  was amazing (and kind of scary to a kid).

My dad was an amazingly patient man. One of the things I absolutely have a phobia about is vomiting. I’m not kidding you. I consider it one of the most disgusting human events on the planet. Once when I was little, I must have caught a stomach virus at school. Unfortunately for my dad, it was on a night when we had pizza and chocolate covered marshmallows for dessert (a truly disgusting combination). I remember waking up in the middle of the night feeling really sick. My mom and dad let me get in the middle of the bed between them. That was their first mistake because that was the first place I yakked. I figured if I didn’t go into the bathroom, I wouldn’t get sick. Talk about twisted fucking logic, man. A few hours later, I was at it again. This time, my dad made sure I got out of the bed. The situation remained the same, however. I refused to go into the bathroom, and proceeded to throw up right on his foot in the middle of the living room. It was pathetic, but he remained calm and cool, and extremely comforting in spite of my absurd phobia.

The unthinkable happens

When my dad was 52 (and I was 9), he got sick. It was first diagnosed as arthritis in my dad’s back. Nobody could really figure out what it was. It just never occurred to me that my dad was ever going to die. I remember they sent my dad to a gym to work with a guy named Mayo Kahn (who, as it turns out, was the actual model for Superman), but the pain kept getting worse. He was eventually diagnosed with lung cancer. By then it was pretty advanced, I’m told.

In 1963, there was no chemotherapy. There was only radiation. He suffered in the Whidden Memorial Hospital in Everett for three solid months. Still, I never dreamed he wouldn’t be coming home. They wouldn’t let me in to see my dad in the hospital because they said I was too young. I remember my sister’s husband, Skip, sneaked me ino the Whidden one Sunday. I’m sure he didn’t look anything like what I remembered, but it didn’t matter to me. I was just happy to be with him.

One day, the phone rang at home and I picked it up. It was the doctor. I was pretty naive at 9 years old and I remember being happy, thinking it meant my dad was coming home. I gave the phone to my mom, and she left me with my grandmother and rushed to the hospital. Many hours later, my mom and sisters returned home without my dad. He had finally died. There would be no more suffering. It took a long time for that to sink in. When everyone had gone home after that long day, I remember being alone in my room crying myself to sleep. That was the first time in my life I had come face-to-face with death. There have been many times since then, but none have had that kind of effect on me (with the possible exception of my mother’s death many years later).

Writer’s Note: My sister Mamie was in labor in the Whidden Hospital while my dad was dying there. My dad died August 8, 1963. My niece, Maria Julia (after my dad), was born August 11, 1963 in the same hospital.