Friday, May 29, 2020
Mr.Joseph T. Hart was the sound everyone heard in the Windham Mountain season pass holders’ locker room. Usually, it was being called out by my husband, Pau Gromadzki...because while it was a joking-type contest, Joe always arrived first. And why? My husband would laugh and sy “Joe, you are such a task-master, taping at his watch that read 7:30 AM.
Paul met Joe on a Windham chair lift 20 years ago; I was introduced to Joe ten years ago.
We called ourselves the three amigos on the slopes because we skied every Saturday and Sunday (and sometimes on Friday if Paul could convinced him to skip work that day - which as we all know Joe, that was very very seldom)!
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We shared the chairlift, laughing and checking out the other slopes as we rode up the mountain. Joe was a more confidant skier than me in the beginning so I would always ski behind him, following in his tracks and trying to imitate his effortless turns.
Years later, it was who dashed down first - usually Paul, but Joe and I skied side-by-side. Of course, one earns a good dinner and. a glass (or maybe two) of white wine each Saturday night after the 5 o’clock Mass..
Off season, Joe, Paul and I gathered for Yankee baseball games, 4th of July barbecue t our cabin (2019), several home cooked dinners with hours-long conversations about history. And, of course, Joe’s travels.
We also connected with Joe in Ft. Lauderdale when he came down, usually in May. We had to be the oldest spring-breakers on A1A,!! So many laughs. Joe’s great smile that went from ear to ear, his sparkling eyes, and how he would throw his head back a bit when having a REALLY HARD LAUGH.
Paul and I married last November 2nd, and Paul was honored when Joe said yes to being our best man. It was just three weeks before the wedding when Joe said he was not up to traveling yo Miami. All three of us were disappointed but we knew Joe was still recovering and frustrated in physical therapy. Oh, he would mourn about it - 4 days a week, and yet, Joe would still travel to his office in Manhattan. And hated he now had to take a cab from the train station.
Oh, how Paul and I miss him; and bracing ourselves for a lonelier locker room come this ski season. Out hearts are broken.
