Salvatore

This April 21, 2019 would be my father's Centennial birthday. A flood of memories come into my  mind every day that I think of him.
One of the greatest generation, his childhood was formed during the Great Depression. He couldn't play baseball often enough because he became a shoe shine boy to help earn some money for the family to buy food. Apparently these boys were territorial about their corners and he would be beaten many times. Undeterred, he would find a new corner. He never complained about any of the hardships he and his sisters endured.
 My grandmother, Rosina, my namesake, always had an entrepreneurial eye out to earn money to keep the family afloat. She opened a grocery store and sold produce until the competition from other businesses choked hers. When my grandfather was laid off and they couldn't pay their rent, they would use the seed money from the city to move to another place, always hoping that they would have income again. That happened a few times and they would have a place to live for a while.
Just when the Depression was ending and jobs were opening up, my Dad won the only lottery he would ever enter. He was drafted into the army in March of 1941. My grandmother who liked FDR because he helped the common person, hated him after that. He took her only son. Salvatore, Sammy to his family, was drafted into the army for four and a half years and fought in the Pacific. The boy from Brooklyn, was in the Calvary and traveled cross country by horse, until he was sent overseas. Honestly, I don't know how he managed to keep his sense of humor, but he did. Like many others of his generation, he didn't speak much about his war experiences. He landed in the field hospital a few times. In the Pacific islands, the GIs had to fake an airfield by playing golf and drinking warm beer. That was one thing he joked about, as if his tour was fun and games. From what he did say, his unit went in after the fighting to make sure no enemies were left. Not so much fun.
When he returned, he, like other vets, was supposed to get preferential treatment in the hiring of jobs. Somehow, that wasn't the case. He worked for a few businesses before he was laid off. Eventually, he got a job with Long Island Lighting Co. He earned his electrician's license in the town and started his own business---Sea Cliff Electric, with the motto, "Watts My Line."
He and my mother took a leap of faith to do this as he had three children and were saving to buy a home. Together, they were successful as small business people. He didn't earn a fortune but he sent all of his five children to college or technical school and kept his home.My father estimated and did the electrical work while my mother took care of payroll and keeping the books.
Dad was quiet but uttered some funny sayings that we all remembered. I think his sense of humor kept him centered.
When his 90th birthday was approaching, we said we wanted to give him a party. He said he really didn't want one. I said," Anyone who has lived to 90 deserves a celebration."
We promised we would only invite family so he did agree. He actually had two parties. When he was visiting my sister in South Carolina, both my brother and sister's families took him out to dinner.
At our celebration, I mentioned to his sister, Vicky, that my aunts always treated us so well despite that fact that my grandmother doted on my father, her only son. She set me straight and said that the family were always appreciative of my Dad.
She said,"We had no food many days and Sammy would come back from shoe shining with nickels so they could eat."
For that day, my sister-in-law suggested "roasting" Dad. He loved every minute of this as it elicited so much good-natured ribbing. He smiled the entire day!