It's Halloween 1973

It's Halloween, 1973---Wednesday, October 31st--about 5PM.


It's dark, as we have set our clocks back the previous Sunday.


I have driven to college today, and about 10 miles down the road is Fitzgerald Mercy Hospital. That's where my father is. He has had surgery to remove his Prostate.


Its's dark--I enter his room and he is heavily sedated and sleeping peacefully---with a tube of some kind coming out of him.


He doesn't waken, and I don't try to wake him.


When I return home, the house is like a morgue.

Bob and Pat Smiley marry

My brother Bob and his fiance, Patricia just got married---congratulations!

My mother tells me my father has cancer

Sometime after dinner, my mother and I were sitting at the kitchen table, and she asked me to walk down to the Pharmacy on Orthodox street and pick up a prescription.

I guess I was a little puzzled as my father does all the errands---at that point, she told me my father had prostate cancer.

I didn't really know what to think---I didn't even know how to spell it (prostrate, prostate) and there was no Internet.

As I walked the two blocks to the Pharmacy and the two blocks back, I sensed that my childhood had just ended.

A little less than 2 years later, my hero, the man to this day I still refer to as the most saintly person I ever met (my mother is saintly too, but her temper and language are a bit stronger), was gone.

Everyone is here for dinner

It's a Monday, and everyone (mother, father, Joe and Annette, Bob and Pat are here for dinner).

What's going on?

Bought a calculator

It was 1973---these devices called 'Calculators' were introduced---they allowed you to do calculations quickly, and they weren't mechanical, they were electronic.
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My father took me to Bundy Typewriter in the Roosevelt Mall, and after evaluating the two leading models, Texas Instruments or Summit, I bought a Summit Calculator for $99---$105.95 including Tax.

By the way, my ability to pick companies that would later go bankrupt over companies that would later go on to make billions was evident even at the age of 18!

I was very happy with the calculator---in fact, I have it even today, although it no longer charges.

I used it in my Chemistry classes and loved it---one thing I didn't love (and still hate today) was the sound of those stinking Texas Instrument Calculators clicking away.

Poor students (I was a good one) would be clicking away at those things in hopes of obtaining a correct answer--the sounds drove me crazy, and even today, I hate the sounds of clicking keyboards and keypads.

First day of College at St. Joseph's University

It's my first day of College at St. Joseph's---I'm very excited.

Of course, this was in the old days, where most students commuted---I took the 73 bus to the 'El' at Bridge and Pratt. The El to 15th and Market, and the 44 bus to 54th and City Line Avenue. Took me about an hour and 15 minutes one way.

For most of my first year, I would take public transportation.

Once in a while, my friend John Szcepanski and his father would give me a ride. John's father would later show me a shortcut that I still use to this day.

In my 2nd year, I would drive occasionally, and then when tragedy struck after my second year, I drove every day in my junior and senior years.

Orientation at College

Just returned from a 2 night orientation at St. Joseph's University---met some nice people that I would see around the campus over the next four years, but that was about it.

Group building exercises, some ball playing, a party that I skipped (I'm not much of a partyer).