You were brought to the U.S. at eight years of age,
By hard-working parents seeking a better life,
Especially for you and your sister, Carmen,
Than was available in your native Galicia of the time.
Both of your parents, Carmen and Manuel, had strong work ethics,
That allowed them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps,
Through hard, honest work in very hard times,
Guided by a strong moral compass they passed on to their two children.
You and your parents lived for many years in Downtown Manhattan,
In a tenement on Cherry Street where Spaniards gathered amongst their own.
You began working at a very young age unloading and delivering newspapers,
And in other jobs that included working as a soda **** in a drugstore.
The Lower East Side was your cradle and your domain in which,
You made life-long friends, including your best friend, Larry Morell.
You learned responsibility there, and a yearning to succeed,
Never letting humble beginnings serve as an excuse for failure.
You were frugal then of necessity, but also generous to a fault with those less fortunate,
And even when working in an office job, you’d walk miles every day,
To save the five-cent subway fare that would leave you a quarter,
For your favorite Saturday activity—the movies.
Every Saturday you would spend that hard-saved quarter only after walking
To every local theater to determine which offered the best movies,
Before spending your quarter in a temporary palace offering two films and a newsreel,
Your silver-screen gateway to excitement, travel, and your window to the world.
You were a gifted athlete in track and field, successfully competing in meets
And earning numerous medals. Your son, Bob, surpassed you in his athletic
Prowess and earned so many medals and trophies even before and during high school
That his mom quipped he must be buying them at a local store.
Good genes and hard work propelled Bob to excellence in track and field, soccer, rugby,
Basketball and only he knows what else since childhood through his years at the
Air Force Academy and beyond. He retired as a Lt. Colonel, special forces para-jumper, and Held multiple levels of command with numerous combat tours he never talks about.
Your daughter, Alice, also inherited your athleticism and was accomplished in fencing and Gymnastics in high school. And she is also an excellent writer with outstanding Organization skills—it took three people ((one full-time, and two part-time) to replace her in The Publications Department when we married, and she left her job for our move upstate.
You Volunteered to serve in the Korean War and attained the rank of Corporal.
The touch-typing skill you learned in a Manhattan business school served you well,
And you became your company’s clerk, serving by the border with North Korea,
In a more serious version of the beloved character of Radar O’Reilly of MASH fame.
You almost never spoke about your service. But on two occasions during our long talks,
You mentioned that only once during your tour of duty did you actually hold a gun,
When ordered to escort a prisoner further South on a long Jeep ride while another
Trooper drove. Though always in danger very close to the hostilities, you never saw combat.
Your second war story told through tears more recently, but before the dementia
That plagued you for the past years of your life robbed you of your memory,
Included your efforts to quietly help North Korean families fleeing South who
Sometimes wandered through or near your camp in the middle of the night.
When you returned home from your tour of duty, you took advantage of the GI Bill,
To earn a college degree at night as you worked in an office clerical position,
And you continued your graduate studies when you became a high school teacher,
Earning at least one master’s degree over an extended period of time.
After your service in Korea, you traveled to Spain, fell in love, and married
Your wife in your native Galicia, a beautiful, loquacious woman, Marisa, who helped
To soften your serious, no-nonsense persona and draw out your social nature
While giving you a daughter and then a son and supporting your long years of study.
She joined you in Lower Manhattan when her visa was granted. And a two years later,
After your daughter Alice was born, you both bought your forever home in Queens.
It was a very old, two-family home that needed a lot of work which you undertook,
While working and still studying for your first college degree.
Your daughter was 25 months old and your son three months when you moved,
Leaving your young wife to raise two young, active, energetic children as you worked and Studied, with very little support, working tirelessly with limited funds and patiently
Waiting for you to complete your studies which took more than a decade.
You got your teaching certificate and began teaching at Bryant High School
Within a short walking distance from your home. You taught Spanish to native speakers,
And continued your studies for your master’s degree also at night, traveling for years to
NYU, St. John’s University, and Hunter College for courses.
After five years of night classes, your wife gently began to ask you “When will you finish?”
You told her seven more years. Even after the 12-year ordeal, you remained busy with
Grading, lesson plans, and the unseen work all teachers knows only too well.
But your wife and children finally got to see you at the dinner table nightly.
You loved the freedom of summers off, and traveled most summers to Spain,
With your wife and children for two months from 1964 on,
Living there with your parents and finally having your wife able to spend time
With her own parents, a short ride by car or bus from your parents’ home.
During those summers, you came across widows struggling whose husbands
Had worked for many years in the U.S. but had died in relative poverty.
You took on the role of advocate for them, getting for many Social Security
Survivor’s pensions for husbands who died without filing for benefits themselves.
You took this on without being asked as a charitable act that during hard times
Brought desperately needed relief to some living in abject poverty.
It was one of many acts of charity, of kindness, that you extended to others
Throughout your life—known only if beneficiaries gratefully acknowledged it.
You loved music, especially classical music, opera, and crooners like Frank Sinatra
And Perry Como. You often retired to your study to listen to music as you worked.
Just days before passing away when you no longer communicated or recognized
Loved ones, your son noted how you tapped your fingers on your table listening to opera.
The last year of work before you took early retirement, you gave up your
Teaching and advisement duties at Bryant High School and accepted a
Promotion to the Board of Education to work on creating new standards for
Bilingual education and help in their implementation.
Rather than a short walk to work, you now had to drive during rush hour to and from
The Board of Education near the Brooklyn Heights area. It was not a pleasant commute.
Moreover, you were tasked once the plan was in place with traveling to high schools
All around NYC to help implement and assess the program.
Despite your commitment to a program you believed would help thousands of students,
You were miserable with your administrative duties and constant driving to schools
In Manhattan and in the outer boroughs. After about a year, you’d had enough,
And you took early retirement to travel with your wife and enjoy life.
Before and after retirement, you were an avid writer. You leave behind hundreds of poems,
An unpublished historical novel, and goodness knows what else locked away in your
Computer’s hard drive. You loved history, especially the history of Spain generally and Especially Galicia, as well as U.S. and world history. You were also a talented painter.
You enjoyed speculative documentaries on the possible interaction between alien visitors And early humans along the lines of Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods.
You knew my interest in science fiction and loved to pose “what if” scenarios on
The possibility of our civilization having cyclically destroyed itself and risen from the ashes.
You and I shared a love for writing fiction, poetry, and non-fiction and had countless Discussions on these topics, and music, teaching, art, politics, and so much more.
When I bought my first computer, you were fascinated and asked me to order you one.
I did. In the days before the Internet or books on the subject, you were willing to learn.
I taught you the basics of the DOS operating system, and WordStar, and then WordPerfect.
You were a good student, though the new technology was a challenge for you.
Nevertheless, as a touch-typist you were happy to abandon your manual typewriter
For the wonderful flexibility of a full-featured word processor.
We spent many, many hours on your new computer—and the many others you later
Asked me to order, but you never looked back and in your late 50s became a convert.
When my dad retired, I did the same for him in his 60s, and he took to it like the proverbial
Duck to water, though my dad was far more interested in and experienced with technology.
You were much more than my father-in-law, family, and a trusted colleague and friend.
I loved you dearly, as I did my mother-in-law, and was blessed to have a special Relationship with you both and to have spent so many years in your company.
I will miss you forever, as will the thousands of people whose lives you’ve touched.
The world is diminished by your passing.
But in the end, it has been enriched by your journey in it.
Your bright candle burned weakly in recent years and has finally sputtered out.
It’s smoke now swirls slowly towards the heavens where loved ones await you.
Rest in peace.