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My first father figure was my British Uncle 'Ronny'. Yes, my
father lived in the same house as I, but much as my sister acted as
my mother during my early years, Uncle Ronny was my first father
figure. My second father figure was Joe Giacomo, the owner of
the grocery store across the hayfield. My third father figure was my
best friend's, Pete's, own father 'Zack Hatch'. And my fourth father
figure really wasn't, he was just this guy that managed the Radio
Shack down the street...
My family home was the childhood family home of the Giacomo family.
The Giacomos came from Italy in the eighteen hundreds and earned
their money making dry stone walls around this area of rural New
England. New England, an Ice Age glacial flow area, is littered with
roundish rocks, some big and most small. As the glaciers flowed,
rocks beneath them were tumbled over again and again, breaking off
any sharp edges and making them rounder, though not with smooth
surfaces like river rocks. The big ones make impressive sights as
God sized pebbles dropped here and there in fields and woods. The
small ones became mixed-in with the soil and made life a challenge
for farmers trying to plow their fields. The immigrant Giacomos
created a job for themselves and would collect these stones and stack
them along boundary lines for land owners, making fields easier to
use and support the 'good fences make good neighbors' theory.
With their money they purchased a large portion of land and made
their first family home. The home I grew-up in was a kit house from
the turn of the twentieth century built a few hundred feet from the
original home on their large tract of land. With all the rocks
already in stone walls, the second generation Giacomo family made a
living by providing hay to the local homes for their horses and food
from their farm at a small food stand along the nearby road. As more
people changed from horses to cars for transport, more focus was
placed on the food stand as it grew from an initially small shed to a
small grocery store at a street corner just down the road.
This family had three children that I knew of. First son
Marcus, who inherited the hay portion of the family business, Second
son Joe who inherited the Grocery store, and Daughter 'Tina' who
trained as a nurse and helped to lobby for a hospital to be built in
our town. Marcus built his home at the far side of the hayfield, Joe
had his home as an over head apartment built as part of the ever
expanding grocery store, and Tina had her home at the far corner of
the hayfield from the second generation house. When their father
died, as they all had their own homes, they sold their father's house
to my family who were seeking a larger place to live within a year of
my birth.
As this house was part of the large tract of land owned by the
immigrant family, it was built within, and surrounded by, the
remaining Giacomo land. My family owned the acre of land surrounding
the house and the medium length dirt road that lead from the main
road to the house. But in reality we had access to everything else,
the hayfield and the hundreds of acres of woods which made up the
rest of the original Giacomo land. The only restriction we had was
not to be in the hayfield when it had grown high enough that we
couldn't be seen before it was cut for bailing. My guess is that was
for safety purposes as they didn't want to accidentally cut us down
with the hay cutter.
Uncle Ronny and Aunt 'Harriet' would visit us regularly during my
childhood years and would even often join us for Thanksgiving and
Christmas. Aunt Harriet would stay at the house and chat with my
parents and Uncle Ronny would take me for a walk through the vast
woods. I would later dub these 'nature walks' where we would meander
and admire the sights while Uncle Ronny would talk to me about
various things and he would also ask me about my life and listen to
my chatter with interest. As a result of this attention, I would
look forward to his visits and this became a routine. During the
winter month visits, we'd just stay inside and visit but then I'd
have to share Uncle Ronny with my siblings and father. Everyone
loved Uncle Ronny... Aunt Harriet wasn't as popular. Though
I never personally experienced it, the scuttlebutt was she talked
endlessly and gave unwanted advice.
As my parents grew apart in my later single digit years and finally
split by my preteens, Joe Giacomo became my next father figure. As
my mother worked at the local grocery store, I would tag along on
some days and watch the store at work and see Joe. When the business
had grown so successful that it put the local I.G.A. out of business,
Joe used the money as the only grocery store to buy-out another
I.G.A. twenty miles away and open his first branch store. When this
happened, my mother transferred there and had a larger role at the
store, eventually working her way up to manager. In reality, my
mother and Joe had been having an affair for several years and the
new location took them away from questioning eyes. But I was unaware
of this at the time and only knew Joe as a friend of my mother.
One Saturday I was bored hanging out at the branch store while my
mother worked. I noticed the milk case was getting low and went to
the milk cooler to get more milk cartons to fill it up as I had seen
my mother do earlier that morning. As with the hayfield a few years
earlier, I had assigned myself my own job. My mother encouraged this
as it made her work less harried and even pointed out my stewardship
of the shelves to Joe. Tickled, Joe rewarded me with money for my
work. A novel concept for me as I was already willing to do the work
to avoid boredom, but I wasn't about to turn the cash away.
This lead to my mentorship in the grocery industry by Joe. I learned
about rotating stock so the oldest always sold first before it
spoiled or got stale. I learned about meat and produce trimming,
packaging, and morning review of the cold cases for outdated stock.
I learned about ordering and the need to anticipate additional
supplies for common, fast-selling items as well as those that sold
more during various holidays. I learned about cashiering and how to
count money and make sure the books balanced, though most of the time
at the register I would just bag groceries and carry-out. And I
learned about store maintenance needs, such as routinely sharpening
knives for meat and produce, the need for cooling compressors to
chill cases out front and refrigerate rooms in back, the occasional
floor tile and shelf cleaning & repair. A few times Joe even
took me on runs to buy parts and one time review a loader to be
purchased.
Zack Hatch, my best friend's father, turned out to be the head of the
math department at the High School. Against the will of my Middle
School I had signed-up for 'Intro To Algebra' for my Freshman year of
High School and by coincidence Zack was the teacher. While he had
been warned that the class would be over my head by other staff and
he would need to shepherd me to a basic math class within the first
quarter, he found the opposite to be true. During my first three
years of High School he quietly became my champion, defending me from
the educational hierarchy who felt I had a 'place' and needed to be
'put in it'. More on my time with him later.
Then there was Ralph. When my mother moved from New England
to Colorado, I would visit her during the Summers. And while she
worked during the days, I would hang out at the local Radio Shack
managed by Ralph. He let me use the display computers as he felt
having a kid use them as customers came in made them appear less
intimidating to the adults. Other than letting me use the computers
and occasionally humor me when I wanted to show-off a program I had
written, he really didn't have much of a role in my life. Still,
when he moved to other Radio Shack locations in later years, I would
hunt him down and say 'Hi' the following Summers!
And my actually father? He still just lived in the house, mostly,
and was best when he was ignoring me...
impatient? Paper, eBook
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