Wednesday, October 11, 2023
John was my first friend at Iona Prep. I lived in Pelham and knew very little about the Prep. John had gone to the grammar school and knew everybody and everything. He called me the first weekend and invited me to go to the movies with him in New Rochelle. I got on a trolley car that stopped in front of the movie house and there was John. It was the start of over 70 years of friendship. My wife Barbara was- and is- a dear friend of Virginia’s. We went to Fordham College together, learned how to take care of our houses and how to cook outside on our grills together.
John really knew how to sell. We talked one night about how he was going to see why the salesman reporting to him was not successful selling to a large A&P. John said that the store manager would be starting work at 5 AM so he would be there with 2 cups of coffee, hand the manager a cup and talk about last night’s baseball game. In a few minutes they would be friends and the manager would be helping John to get his products moving off the store’s shelves.
John loved to sing WWII songs. We had dinner last year and over dessert he sang, “I blew a kiss on the ocean.” And I answered with “ It billowed out to the sea” and together we sang “and from the ocean my kiss came back, was my blue
jacket answering me!”
As I think about how much I will miss John my heart goes out to Virginia and his family who will miss him so much more than I will.
