My father has always possessed an easygoing, mild-mannered disposition coupled with a quiet sense of humor...
I do not recall ever seeing him display uncontrolled anger or shouting, not even when I was an adolescent. I used to try very hard to provoke my father with my bad behavior and rebellious ways. But he would never lose his cool, although I certainly caused him a lot of grief and bitter bewilderment with my cruel ways, which I deeply regret.
In any event, my dad seemed to know how to take life as it came. Born in 1910, he grew up in poverty on the Lower Side of Manhattan, which is a borough of New York City. Eventually, however, his parents managed to save enough money to move the family uptown to a middle-class neighborhood in the East Nineties. Next came their move from Manhattan to a tenement in the Bronx.
My father's parents, like millions of European immigrants, made their way to the United States from Hungry in the 1890s. Like everyone else who landed on America's shore, there was the dreaded stop at the famed Ellis Island to be interviewed, inspected for diseases, and then processed by U.S. Customs officials before being allowed into the country. They came here in search of a better life.
My Dad would live through World War I and the Great Depression of 1929. He would serve in the U.S. Army during World War II, where he was mostly stationed on the island of Guam in the South Pacific, where the United States troops battled the Japanese.
Hardworking and practical, my father was handy with all kinds of tools. After the war, he opened a small neighborhood hardware store in the Bronx, where he was able to earn a modest living to support my mother and I. The name of the store was Burke's Hardware. It was located on East Gun Hill Road near Perry Avenue.
Later, however, after my mother passed away in 1967 at the age of fifty-two, my Dad sold the store and went into a partnership with a lifelong friend of his who owned the Selmore Hardware store which was then located at 802 Melrose Avenue in the heart of the crime-ridden South Bronx. The store was a friendly outpost for people to shop at or to get advice on tools or paint in an otherwise impoverished ghetto. Sometimes after school or on Saturdays, I would help in the store part-time. The local residents loved my dad.
No doubt his calm demeanor and peaceful ways, plus his overall ability to take life as it came, probably helped to add years to his life. In addition, until only several years ago, my father was an avid bowler. Once a week on Thursday evenings he would join his teammates at the local bowling alley on Bronx River Avenue where they would compete in a semi-pro league against other teams. My Dad's team was called "The Boilermakers." Bowling was my father's only recreation since he worked six days per week, ten hours per day. He had little time for leisure otherwise. He bowled until the age of 92, and he gave up the sport only because his physician suggested that at his age such an activity was too risky.
D.B.
In any event, my dad seemed to know how to take life as it came. Born in 1910, he grew up in poverty on the Lower Side of Manhattan, which is a borough of New York City. Eventually, however, his parents managed to save enough money to move the family uptown to a middle-class neighborhood in the East Nineties. Next came their move from Manhattan to a tenement in the Bronx.
My father's parents, like millions of European immigrants, made their way to the United States from Hungry in the 1890s. Like everyone else who landed on America's shore, there was the dreaded stop at the famed Ellis Island to be interviewed, inspected for diseases, and then processed by U.S. Customs officials before being allowed into the country. They came here in search of a better life.
My Dad would live through World War I and the Great Depression of 1929. He would serve in the U.S. Army during World War II, where he was mostly stationed on the island of Guam in the South Pacific, where the United States troops battled the Japanese.
Hardworking and practical, my father was handy with all kinds of tools. After the war, he opened a small neighborhood hardware store in the Bronx, where he was able to earn a modest living to support my mother and I. The name of the store was Burke's Hardware. It was located on East Gun Hill Road near Perry Avenue.
Later, however, after my mother passed away in 1967 at the age of fifty-two, my Dad sold the store and went into a partnership with a lifelong friend of his who owned the Selmore Hardware store which was then located at 802 Melrose Avenue in the heart of the crime-ridden South Bronx. The store was a friendly outpost for people to shop at or to get advice on tools or paint in an otherwise impoverished ghetto. Sometimes after school or on Saturdays, I would help in the store part-time. The local residents loved my dad.
No doubt his calm demeanor and peaceful ways, plus his overall ability to take life as it came, probably helped to add years to his life. In addition, until only several years ago, my father was an avid bowler. Once a week on Thursday evenings he would join his teammates at the local bowling alley on Bronx River Avenue where they would compete in a semi-pro league against other teams. My Dad's team was called "The Boilermakers." Bowling was my father's only recreation since he worked six days per week, ten hours per day. He had little time for leisure otherwise. He bowled until the age of 92, and he gave up the sport only because his physician suggested that at his age such an activity was too risky.
D.B.
